I took prenatal vitamins and ate healthy food while pregnant with Leighton. I breast fed her for eight months, made my own baby food and continue to make her meals from scratch. And oh yeah ... I fed her glass the other day.
You heard me. FED HER GLASS. I am not proud of this mishap, but as cautionary tales go, this one turns out just fine.
The cliffs notes version of the terrifically harrowing saga goes something like this: We were driving back from St. Louis for Christmas Eve in Milwaukee. Lei, Lue and I were camped out in the back seat, having a wonderful time. After the seventh round of "point to Mommy's nose" Leighton got hungry. I reached for some Gerber pears because I figured they were pureed to a velvety consistency and Lei would be able to eat them in a moving vehicle without choking.
Yes. I realize that at the outset of this post, I congratulated myself for my Martha Stewart-like dedication to handcrafted baby food. However, I make it in large batches and freeze it, so it wouldn't have traveled without spoiling. I figured a few rule-breaking jars of America's favorite pears wouldn't be a dangerous deviation from our norm.
I was wrong. On the fourth bite, Lei started gagging and gasping. I could see that she was able to breathe, so I figured we had a "wrong pipe" situation. However, it lasted for sooo long that I had Ryan pull over. I quickly snapped her out of her seat, and after a few pats on the back, she was okay. By okay I mean wailing, bright red, and super duper pissed - like the time she rolled off the couch and fully blamed me for it.
I couldn't figure out what went so incredibly wrong for her, so I inspected the pears. They appeared fine, but when I stuck my finger inside the jar and felt under the label/sticker, I felt pieces of broken glass. BROKEN GLASS! WTF?
You couldn't even see the damage from the outside because the label covered up the crumbly glass and held it all together. Two jars must have banged into each other and this one got smacked just right. Gerber will be getting a letter from me. How unfortunate for them to injure the child of a woman with an audience. BUMMER FOR GERBER.
I didn't see any blood in Lei's mouth or throat and we managed to calm her down. Once I realized that she was out of immediate danger, I sat back and thought about the fact that I had, perhaps, just scooped a tiny shard of glass onto a spoon and fed it to the most precious little creature on my planet. The thought of it was so utterly ridiculous to me - like putting Tobasco on her eggs or letting her loose on a can of mixed nuts or letting her play on a window ledge or Munchausen syndrome or something equally odd. I couldn't comprehend it. And, if anything seriously traumatic would have happened, I'm not sure what I would be writing to you at this very moment. Shudder.
I dismissed the horrific thoughts and proceeded to load Lei up with roughly 12 ounces of formula. I proceeded to check her respirations and heart rate every five seconds for the rest of the ride home. I couldn't completely calm down. It sucked.
The long short is that Dr. Weissbluth's office told us to make our way home and check in with the ER Attending at Children's, which is less than two blocks from our house. We bundled up and walked there in the snow like we were headed to Argo for a holiday tea break.
There was no wait in the emergency room (it was pleasantly eerie) and Lei had a great time rifling through tongue depressors and making eyes at the nurses. She didn't even need an Xray and she pooped three times since, so we are out of the woods with regard to crapping shards of Gerber safety glass. WHEW!
Anyway, the point of this - other than the fact that I will never feed my child Gerber food again - is that I will never feed my child Gerber food again. Oh wait. I said that already. If you are wondering why I don't just buy the plastic tubs of food instead, the answer is that I think contents smell and taste like plastic. Who knows how long that boiled food sits in there before your kid eats it? And, if I feed Lei commercially prepared baby food, I use Earth's Best because it looks, smells and tastes much better. The grocery store just happened to be out of pears the day we packed for our trip.
Bottom line: Nothing beats mama's (or daddy's) cooking - just ask Leighton.
So, I got to thinking about all of the cool gear we've used to feed Leighton since birth, and tomorrow's post is a ginormous What the Fuss? on all things feeding. Like anything you do in the kitchen, you simply must have good equipment, and I am more than happy to share my fuss with you.
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