Scary Moment

As Jones says when things get tense on an episode of "Stooby Stoo," one thing that happened today was "really scare."

After Freddie got up from his nap, I was eating some frozen grapes. Freddie loves these, so I anticipated his asking for some when he saw me with them. As expected, he asked, and as usual, I bit one in half and gave the single piece to him.

These grapes were colder than usual, having been in the freezer for three straight days. Freddie couldn't take the cold, so he took out the halved grape and handed it back to me. I thought that was that. We were sitting together in Jeremy's easy chair. I kept eating the grapes but assumed that Freddie was done them.

Wrong.

A few seconds later, I heard Freddie gagging. Having been told that, so long as a person can make a sound, then their windpipe isn't closed, I wasn't all that worried, though I was six inches away from him, watching intently to make sure things didn't get any worse.

They DID get worse.

He started doing that foamy-saliva thing that people do when they're choking, and I started to panic. And then, I SWEAR I heard the thing lock into his windpipe. I was freaking out. My phone was right beside me, so I thought, "Do I call 911, so they're on their way, while I work on him?"

And then, like a flash of sanity straight from above, I remembered watching a video that said to put a choking child over your lap and then hit him on his back with the butt end of your palm, so that's what I did, and as soon as I did, PRAISE GOD, the grape - the WHOLE grape that I'm guessing he'd grabbed from the bag when I wasn't looking - popped out like a cork and landed on the floor in front of Freddie. I'm guessing he'd grabbed the grape. It was too frozen for him to chew, so he tried to swallow it whole, and that's when it got stuck.

He didn't cry or anything after it'd dislodged, but I immediately put him on my lap, hugged him, and said, "Freddie, we need to pray and thank God for saving you," so I prayed, and then I cried, sobbing out of fear and gratitude to the God Who'd saved my choking baby.

I don't like to include too many of the sad, bad, or the "really scare" stories on this blog, but I wanted to post this one, so that Freddie will always have examples of God at work to protect his life - and so that anyone who reads it who either has children or who spends time with MY children will know what to do should anything like this ever happen again, which I pray it never, ever will.

Also, no more frozen grapes for Freddie.


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"Give thanks in all circumstances ..." - I Thessalonians 5:18