I have found out the best medicine for sick kids. It help a sick one get better, faster. With it, their immune system boosts naturally and best of all, no meds needed.
It is 3 a.m. You are woken from your dream of a cucumber water spa eating chocolate-covered strawberries by the unsettling sound of a child’s cough that sounds so much like a bark; you would think there was a circus seal in the next room. Or even worse, your little is throwing up all over the curtains.
What is your first “go-to” when you have sick children? Do you reach for the medicine in your cabinet? Are you on the phone with the doctor’s office? Do you feel at a loss as to what you should do to help them?
The Traditional “Get Well Soon” Package From the 70’s and 80’s
When I was sick as a kid, my parents took me to the doctor and he prescribed me some meds. I always got some canned chicken noodle soup and ice cream to help me get better. Oh, and some saltine crackers and 7-UP. I should have been better in no time. Sound familiar?
Image by freeimages.com
I’d like to show you a better way. I have found out how to help a sick one get better, faster. With it, their immune system boosts naturally and best of all, no meds needed.
The Best Advice a Doctor Gave Me
When you talk with a doctor, they tend to give you generic health advice like:
“Take two of these and call me in the morning.”
“Get plenty of fluids.”
“Get some rest.”
But I was shocked when I heard his recommendation.
He told me to juice when we got sick.
Really? Is it that simple? That seems so easy, doesn’t it?
This doesn’t mean going a buying apple or orange juice. This means juicing fruits and vegetables. There are some restrictions.
His prescription is this:
NO Sugar
NO Grains
NO Dairy
Drink Green Juice
Why We Juice
Image by freeimages.com
Food is your fuel. Juicing is a superfood that cleanses and nourishes the body. It boosts your immune system and the vitamins and minerals are easily absorbed into your system with less digestion. Think of juicing as sending in the S.W.A.T. team to attack all that naughty bacteria.
Green juice will shorten the cold and flu by helping your body fight the sickness.
No More Sickness Juicing Recipe
You want the best produce, so I highly recommend buying organic:
Cucumbers
Celery
Carrots
Lemons
Green apples
Pinch of ginger
Spinach
Take one of each ingredient listed above and put it into your juicer. How easy is that, sister?!
I recommend juicing once a day while they are sick. Drink this right away while the nutrients are fresh. You can refrigerate your juice for up to 24 hours, but I always shoot for getting this in their system right away. If you decide not to drink it all right away, it is best to store in a Mason jar with a lid.
Now you don’t have to feel at a loss when you or your loved ones are sick. In a few short hours you will see your little one perk up and they will be able to fight the sickness so much better with these powerful superfoods.
What are some things you do when your little ones are sick? Do you have tried and true methods you would like to share?
When she isn’t bandaging her twins’ skinned knees or helping her daughter find the perfect color of pink to wear for the day, you can find Emily fighting the good fight for simple and sane healthy living at www.nontoxicsweetheart.com. There she encourages and empowers moms to live an authentic, simple life while battling the toxins that we face in the world today.
Original article and pictures take thehumbledhomemaker.com site
The Best Food to Make When You Want a Break After Christmas
We’ve worked and we’ve wrapped and we’ve traveled and we’ve prepared and we’ve baked and we’ve cleaned. We made all the fun treats and the special dishes and the favorite meals. If you’re anything like me, you’ve enjoyed a wonderful Christmas holiday and from now until January 2, you simply want to sit back and enjoy a break.
Here’s what I want to do right now. I want to play all the new games we got for Christmas. I want to watch too many movies. I want to sit under a blanket and sip coffee. I want to relish the fact that my oldest is home from college and we are all together again for a few short days. I want to fully enjoy the fact that there are no Geometry lessons or English papers or school deadlines right now.
Take a Break After Christmas!
And as much as I love to cook, right now I do not want to cook. I most certainly do not want to clean my kitchen. These days are considered days of rest and I fully intend to find refreshment with my family right now.
Who else feels this way? Surely none of you are working on projects or cleaning or organizing while I talk smack with my family around a board game? Tell me you’re taking a break right now too!!!
Well, even though we certainly want to enjoy some downtime, it is a fact that we all still need to eat. So today, I’m posting 36 recipes that take just a few minutes to put together. Hooray for Simple Recipes! Hooray even bigger for Simple Meals, which takes all the brain work out of our menu planning, telling us what to make and what to buy, giving us permission to get out of the kitchen and enjoy our families!
36 Simple Recipes That Take Very Few Minutes to Make
And yes, this sale can be combined with the monthly special of a FREE mini Flexi clip with orders of $50 or more. Sale runs from Tuesday, December 26 at 7 AM PT (10 AM ET) to Wednesday, Dec. 27 at midnight PT.
Original article and pictures take heavenlyhomemakers.com site
I posted this recipe several years ago, but last month when I was cleaning out some old, irrelevant posts – I think I somehow deleted this one for Homemade Guacamole! Yikes. One should never delete their guacamole.
What I love about guacamole is that it is a super easy way for our family to add nourishment to the table. Everyone in our family loves this guac. They just think they’re eating chips with dip, and I’m like, “Yay, they’re eating another veggie!” Actually, avocados are a fruit aren’t they? Well, whatever. They are super nutritious.
Before I (re)share this recipe, I need to have a slightly weird conversation with you. Avocados are green and guacamole is usually green, but what happens when you mix green (avocados) and red (salsa) together? Wellllll….
Let’s just say my guac ends up looking a little bit like…um, well, it’s brownish. Red and green make brown, and that’s what color your guac will be when you follow this recipe. There is no other way. So the end result of blending these fine ingredients together makes an ugly mixture in a bowl.
We are used to it and don’t even care. But when we serve it to company we have to have a “sorry this guacamole looks like baby poop, please try it anyway” conversation. Then we all enjoy snacking together. Hospitality is always fun at the Coppinger house.
Well now that we got that out of the way…
Do you see how easy this is? Dump in the ingredients, blend it up, scoop it out, eat it because you just can’t stop. After one bite, you will no longer care what color it is because the flavors are just so wonderful together.
Don’t sweat the exact measurements on this “recipe.” Add or subtract ingredients to taste. Use hot salsa, medium, or mild – your choice. It pretty much tastes great no matter how you blend it. It just looks ugly. Bless its heart.
Original article and pictures take heavenlyhomemakers.com site
Who do you live with? We as humans live in symbiosis with millions of microbes – it’s the body ecology that we nourish that will keep us healthy. The body houses a veritable rain forest of diversity that is teaming with microorganisms. These tiny organisms are as complex as the amazon and just as threatened.
Which Organisms are There?
This is known as taxonomy or classification of organisms. The body houses 30 to 100 trillion bacteria, which is 10 times the amount of human cells in the body.
There are 1000 species of bacteria, fungi (called the mycobiome), viruses (virome), as well as protozoa and helminthes (which are missing in the industrialized world – see the Hygiene Hypothesis.)
What Do These Organisms Do?
According to Dr. Leo Galland, there are three main functions of the gut microbiome. (source)
1- The gut microbiome has an impact on the immune system. Microbes affect immunity just by their presence. Their presence stimulates the immune and nervous system. The brain and hormones respond to this immune excitation. If there is excessive stimulation produced by dysbiosis, bacterial overgrowth, leaky gut, etc., there can be systemic and/or central nervous system inflammation.
2- Gut bacteria directly stimulate afferent neurons of the enteric nervous system (located in the gut) and send signals to the brain via the vagus nerve. This is how the gut bacteria can influence function of brain and create problems in mental health.
3- Microbes in the gut constitute a huge chemical factory producing thousands of substances. Gut microbes can produce hormones and neurotransmitters that are identical to those produced by humans. It has be shown that germ free animals have 1% the variety of chemical substances in their gut.
All these chemicals impact all the other systems and functions (immune, endocrine, etc.) in the body. There are certain core functions that are taken care of by these microbes.
As noted in a previous post about beneficial bacteria, they perform many essential services and we can no longer ignore the incredible impact our microbiome has on our physical and mental health.
The Alexander Effect
Dr. Galland has coined a new term called the Alexander Effect. Historically Alexander of Macedonia conquered many other surrounding tribes. He did this by being able to organize many different troops.
Examples of the Alexander Effect involve weight control and the effects of genes and the microbiome on body weight. A lot of the influence on body weight is genetic.
How does genetics shape the microbiome? Studies (The Swedish twin registry) have found that 30% of the composition of the microbiome is genetic and 70% is environmental and diet. The genetic component has to do with an organism called Christian cinella – these organisms are associated with lean body weight. They isolated this organism and fed it to mice and it found that it protected the mice from being obese.
This microorganism has driven more and more research into the link between obesity and gut microbes – particularly by companies who want to be the first to find a cure for obesity via microbe manipulation. That would be a huge money maker, don’t you think?
However, the results have been inconsistent. For a while it appeared that the relationship between the amounts of bacteroides and firmicutes was the answer, but that has not held up.
There was a study in 2013, reported on the National Institutes of Health website, in which identical twins (same genetics) – a lean twin and a heavy twin – had their gut microbes fed to germ free mice. The mice fed from the lean twin’s microbes became resistant to fat. The mice fed from the obese twin’s microbes easily became obese.
They tried to identify the organisms which were responsible. They tried using a probiotic with 35 strains and it had no effect. It appeared that the whole microbiome has to be present to be effective. This indicates that the gut microbes work in concert with each other.
However, now we know about the Christian cinella organism who can organize the whole microbiome for resistance to obesity. This is important because we can use this information to formulate therapeutic modalities to alter gut microbes to encourage the Alexander Effect.
This is a Critical Finding
We can now use this information to therapeutically alter gut microbes to encourage the growth of Alexander organisms – those organisms that can organize and direct other microbes.
One Alexander organism is Lactobacillus johnsnoii which was found to protect against allergies.
We know that people who are exposed to animals early in life are less likely to suffer from allergies. There was a study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in which a group of mice were fed dog dust and another group wasn’t. The group that was fed the dog dust were not as sensitive to allergens.
The researchers took it a step further and tried to identify which microbes in the gut were present in the mice that were not sensitive. They isolated Lactobacillus johnsnoii This may very well be an Alexander organism.
Of course there are bad bacteria and there may be bad Alexander organisms. In some cases, antibiotics are needed to get rid of the bad bacteria in order for the probiotics to work.
What Shapes the Microbiome?
Inflammation has a huge impact on the microbiome. All states of illness are associated with inflammation and less diversity in the microbiome and overgrowth of proteo or entero bacteria like E. coli and Klebsiella. These are major human pathogens.
Inflammation involves the production of nitric oxide which becomes nitrate. In inflamed tissue there is an accumulation of nitrate and this supports growth with of proteo bacteria and pathogenic bacteria which are inflammatory in their effects.
This becomes a vicious cycle where a little inflammation leads to growth of inflammation-producing bacteria. You have to stop the cycle of inflammation and you have to deal with the bad bacteria.
This sounds like the basis of the SCD and GAPS diets.
Aside from diet, treatments may be antibiotics and/or antimicrobial herbs. Flavinoids also has a significant impact in shaping the gut flora.
You Can Change Your Microbiome in Just Weeks or A Few Months!
With bacteria having the ability to reproduce every 20 minutes, you CAN change your microbiome in just a matter of weeks or months if you focus on eating bacteria-rich foods.
Cultured foods are a traditional way of preserving food and getting beneficial bacteria into the gut consistently. Fermented food can be a benefit, but some folks are sensitive to fermented food. It has to be an individual approach.
Start to introduce homemade yogurt,coconut milk yogurt,kefir, kombucha,beet kvass,sauerkraut, and pickles just to name a few. Incorporate these fermented foods into your diet in small portions at first as they pack a powerful amount of bacteria that can set off a Herxheimer reaction, or die-off, if introduced too quickly.
Cultured foods taste good and hey, you may even lose some weight!
Are you eager to start making the switch over to natural remedies, but unsure of where to start?
I know that when you’re first getting started with the world of herbs, essential oils, alternative medicines and so on, it can feel daunting. Walking into a health food or vitamin store is an exercise in overwhelm. And googling what you’re trying to find out can be even worse!
Growing up, we took Tylenol for headaches, Nyquil for colds, Neosporin for cuts, and Pepto Bismal for stomach-related issues (that’s a nice way of saying it, isn’t it?). Our medicine cabinet had it all.
The unfortunate truth is that while these “remedies” may mask symptoms enough to make us feel temporarily better, they don’t actually contribute to bringing our body back to a place of healing and wholeness. In fact, over the long term, small doses of common pharmaceuticals can actually harm our body (for example, Tylenol can cause liver damage).
I think the best course of action when you’re just starting to make the transition from pharmaceuticals to natural remedies is to pick a few simple ones with a variety of uses, and get comfortable with them, before moving on to more.
To help you do just that, I’ve put together a list of the 5 natural remedies that I would most highly recommend to a beginner.
1. Clay
More specifically, bentonite clay. This might sound like a bizarre first remedy (she’s recommending dirt??), but stick with me a moment, OK?
Let’s go back to that well-known pink stuff… Pepto Bismal. Any guess what’s in it? That’s right. Clay (but unfortunately, also all sorts of other ingredients your body doesn’t need).
The reason it works is that clay is able to attract toxins to itself, and draw them out of the body. It can absorb nasty stuff in our digestive systems and clear it out the other end. It can remove toxins, impurities and infections from skin. It can also be very soothing.
stomach upsets (diarhea, digestive troubles, general tummy yuckiness)
to soothe cuts and scrapes and aid healing process
draw out an infection in the skin
detoxifying (we use it most specifically for baths)
Read more in detail about how clay works, and how we use it in this post.
While I’m on the topic, I want to give activated charcoal a big thumbs up.
For one thing, it’s more readily available than clay (you can buy activated charcoal HERE) For another, it works equally well as clay when taken internally for stomach distress (and I’d venture to say it works even better), as well as for healing infections and addressing stings or bites. I’m a huge fan and you can read about how I used it to treat a skin infection here.
2. Garlic
Not just any old garlic, but even more specifically, raw garlic.
And here’s the beautiful thing about garlic… you can buy it at any grocery store. It keeps for a long time in a cool, dark place or in your fridge. There’s no reason not to have it on hand for when sickness strikes.
I’ve actually written a very lengthy piece on how garlic works and its benefits, but allow me to condense it for you. When raw garlic is crushed or minced, compounds within it are activated which have a very strong anti-biotic effect. It also has anti-fungal, anti-viral, and anti-inflammatory properties.
In a nutshell, there are two many things you need to remember about using garlic effectively:
It really needs to be raw to be truly potent, and is more active once minced or crushed in some way.
You can’t take it once a day like an antibiotic pill and hope for the same result. It’s not a pharmaceutical. To get great results with many natural remedies, you want to take them steadily over the course of the day, every few hours. If you take it this way, you’ll be amazed at the results!
Garlic can be used for so many things, but here are just a few to try:
Not sure you can get it down? Maybe try one of these 7 ways to eat it? My kids will take a clove minced up if it’s covered in raw honey. My husband and I like it best on top of a piece of toast with cheese on top.
3. Herbal salve
This is my wonder cream. My kids all know exactly what I mean when they have an owie of some sort and I tell them to go “put cream on it”. It’s also one of the very easiest natural remedies that anyone can start with.
Really, it’s not cream at all, but an herb-infused blend of oils that are solidified into a salve which you can rub on, like an ointment. It’s similar to using something like a Neosporin or antibiotic ointment from a tube at the pharmacy, except that it’s all natural and beyond just preventing infection, it really encourages healing.
There are many salves out there and you can even make one yourself if you prefer. I’m all for DIY but I’m usually just as happy to buy mine. I love this one, though there are many out on the market that are probably effective as well.
We use herbal salve for:
diaper rash
chapped lips
cuts and scrapes
minor infections
rashes
4. Essential oils
I’ve grown to love using essential oils more and more over the years. They’re so quick and easy to reach for, and when used properly, can be very effective. The more basic ones are also very affordable and last a long time, making them a good choice for someone just getting started.
There’s a fair bit of controversy out there over whether you should or shouldn’t ingest oils, and I would agree, it’s a murky subject which I won’t into for now.
What I will say is that there are a number of uses that I would recommend to anyone, with just a few of the more inexpensive oils out there.
Peppermint – Great for sore muscles and for headaches (particularly tension headaches). Also for nausea (smelling it helps a lot for this use, as can rubbing it on temples or behind ears). It’s a bit strong, so usually best to mix it with a carrier oil (coconut or olive oil work great) before rubbing onto the skin, since it irritates some people and don’t let it come in contact with eyes (ask me how I know).
Eucalyptus – You can make your own version of Vapo Rub with this oil and it really, truly works. Or, you can be simple like me and just pour a little olive oil into the palm of your hand, add a few drops of eucalyptus, and bada bing, bada boom. You’ve got “vapo rub”. Rubbing it on the chest and back works, but also, try the bottoms of bare feet, and then put socks on overnight.
Lavender – I have used this oil many times in its neat form (undiluted) when I’ve burned myself. Just rub a drop or two straight onto the burn (you wouldn’t do this with a really serious burn – it’s more for your average kitchen burn). It usually helps to relive the pain within about 5 minutes, and sometimes I re-apply it 10-15 minutes later if needed. It’s also very helpful for calming and relaxing, whether used with a carrier oil and rubbed gently on the skin, or by smelling it (a diffuser is great for this purpose).
There were so many other remedies I could have chosen for this last one (probiotics, raw honey, colloidal silver and epsom salts were all on my short list), but ginger is one of the first herbs that I really noticed tangible results with, so I want to pass it on to all the beginners out there.
First of all, it’s very accessible. You can buy fresh ginger root at most grocery stores, and certainly ginger powder in the spice section if nothing else. Secondly, ginger is absolutely wonderful for the digestive system.
I would highly recommend using either:
1. Fresh, peeled ginger (in slices or chunks) OR
2. Ginger tea (either chopping up fresh ginger and making tea with that, or using the dried power with hot water)
Both work amazingly for nausea, morning sickness, heartburn, gas, upset stomach, etc. I regularly drink ginger tea or nibble on fresh ginger while pregnant, especially in first trimester or when I have heartburn later on in pregnancy.
I’ve also found ginger to be very effective in a more uncommon use — the bath! Particularly great for chills, flus and fevers… run a hot bath and dump in 1/2 cup to 1 cup of ginger powder (beware that more will be stronger!) and less for children (maybe 1/4 cup maximum). Sit and soak in the hot ginger water.
It will increase circulation and probably make you feel a bit flushed. Make sure to drink lots of water and only stay in as long as you can (with a child, watch them very carefully if they’re looking flushed and don’t keep them in too long). Then, get out, drink some more water, and wrap yourself up in bed. This circulation boost really helps with reducing the chills and aches of a fever and in my experience, shortens its duration.
One of our favorite family activities is taking walks around our neighborhood. Knowing the four stages of family walks with young children can help keep things fun (even when mama and daddy might need to exercise a little patience!).
Our family loves to takes walks.
But walks with young children can be a challenge.
There’s nothing worse than being halfway through your neighborhood and having your 30-pound child begging for you to carry her the rest of the way home because she’s just plain tuckered out.
Over the past 7 1/2 years of parenting three girls all born within four years of each other, my hubby and I have learned a few tricks for taking family walks with young children.
It helps to realize there are really four stages of family walks with young children.
1. Stroll
This stage will last from newborn through about age 2 1/2.
Family walks will be fun, easy, and your baby or toddler might even nap during them!
At 7, 5, and 3, my girls are all past this stage now, but I often really miss it!
2. Learn
At this stage, your older toddler is beginning to realize that he or she will actually be able to be in control one day!
While children in this stage can still ride in a stroller during family walks, it’s also fun to let them try riding a small tricycle built just for their little legs and arms.
When our girls were young, it was helpful to have a tricycle that had a handle on the back, where hubby or I could push them if they got tired.
3. Pedal
Between 12 and 18 months, children can learn how to pedal a tricycle.
It is so much fun to watch their eyes light up when they perfect this skill and realize newfound independence!
4. Trike
Once they perfect pedaling, they can learn how to steer, and you officially have a child who can ride a tricycle on family walks!
This might make for slower walks at times, but try to keep in perspective that this time is more for family bonding than for hard-core exercise.
We are currently using the The Perfect Fit 4-in-1 Trike with our recently-turned 3-year-old and our 5-year-old as well (when they play nice and share!).
The girls LOVE this tricycle!!
The Perfect Fit Trike is a stroller, push trike, and full trike all in one. It’s a ride-on that grows with your child.
I am a HUGE advocate of not overbuying toys (been there, done that when I just had one kid!), and I love how this tricycle will grow with the child, so there is no need to purchase a different toy for each stage of family walks with young children!
With this tricycle, the parents first push and steer.
As the child grows, the parent can steer while the child pedals.
Once they master pedaling, they can begin steering themselves.
You can leave the push handle, so that the parent can still push if needed. It’s perfect if your child gets tired halfway through a walk–a useful feature for our 3-year-old right now!
Once the child learns how to both pedal and steer, you can remove the push handle, so they feel full independence–and are ready to one-day learn how to ride a bicycle!
The Perfect Fit 4-in-1 Trike would make a great Christmas gift for a child ages 9 months to 3 (and children up to age 5 can use it, so it will last for years to come!). You can find these awesome tricycles at Toys ‘R Us.
Check out how the Perfect Fit 4-in-1 Trike in the video below (or click to the Little Tikes You Tube channel to watch it):
What are your trips for taking family walks with young children?
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Little Tikes. The opinions and text are all mine.
Original article and pictures take thehumbledhomemaker.com site
The #1 Mistake Christians Parents Make When Talking About Puberty
As far as phases of life go, puberty is probably the most awkward. Zits, body hair, strange new odors, breasts, cracking voices, and the list goes on. The transition from childhood to adulthood makes for some strange new life experiences.
I meet the same segment of parents over and over: parents who talk about talk about the specific changes of puberty without talking about sex.
The 1 Mistake Christian Parents Make When Talking About Puberty
Unintended Consequences
Why do these parents do this? I hear a couple reasons.
Reason #1: Preserving Innocence
The most common reason I hear is a desire to preserve the childish naivety of their children. They are trickling information out to their kids on a need-to-know basis, because too much information about sex, they say, only robs a child of his or her “innocence.”
But we do not protect a child’s innocence by preserving their ignorance. Innocence is not a function of having less information. It’s a function of attitude. And training a child to have a godly attitude about puberty means informing them of God’s perspective on the subject.
Having The Talk Quote Innocence
Reason #2: Sex Talks = Awkward
The other common reason why parents do this is because they are avoiding the personal awkwardness of having sexual conversations. They simply can’t picture themselves talking about penises and vaginas, let alone talking about how they go together.
But if your goal is to make conversations less awkward for you by avoiding the subjects of intercourse and baby-making, in the end it only makes it more awkward for your kids. By avoiding the big WHY behind the changes they face, puberty can feel like a cruel joke, not a purposeful change.
Missing the Whole Point of Puberty
Puberty is primarily about one thing: sexual maturity. This fact is patently obvious to parents, but it’s also the one thing many conservative parents avoid talking about.
Your little boy isn’t just “becoming a man.” Your little girl isn’t just “becoming a woman.” Becoming a man and becoming a woman mean something more than just “growing up.”
It means entering a phase of reproductive maturity where your son or daughter is physiologically changing—God-willing—to some day get married, have (and enjoy) sex, and have babies of their own.
The 1 Mistake Christian Parents Make When Talking About Puberty
When we only talk about the details of the changes of puberty but miss the central theme of this whole transition of life, it’s like putting together a puzzle with no border. We need to give our kids a frame to understand WHY all these changes are happening.
The good news God has given us that frame for understanding puberty, both in the natural revelation of how he created our bodies and the special revelation of His holy Word.
Puberty with Purpose
My wife and I have just released a course for Christian parents called Having the Talk: Changes. After we released our first course (geared towards parents of kids ages 6-10), we kept hearing the same thing: “We want a course to help us talk with our kids who are about to go through puberty.”
So that’s what we did. This course is for parents preparing to talk to kids ages 8-12—the age range when most all kids begin to experience puberty.
The goal of the whole course is equipping parents with the language and confidence to talk about puberty from a biblical perspective.
Register now! You’ll get access to all 8 course videos, plus several bonus videos, and a free digital copy of the book Changes: 7 Biblical Lessons to Make Sense of Puberty.
Having the Talk Changes
Original article and pictures take www.intoxicatedonlife.com site
That Time my iPhone Scrolling Could Have Cost My Daughter Her Life
On one of the last days of our Costa Rica trip this summer, we had one of the biggest scares of our life–our youngest daughter, who will turn 3 next week, almost choked on a quarter. My husband had to perform the heimlich maneuver on her. Thank God he knew how.
I know some people might call me a bad parent after reading this post.
Some might ask: Why in the world would you let your child play with coins?
Some might ask where in the world I was when she was putting coins in her mouth.
I posted a picture of the coins she had in her mouth that night on Instagram, but I didn’t tell the whole story. I was embarrassed. I was prideful.
Sharing this story is humbling. But it needs to be said because maybe it will help someone else.
Friends, the night my daughter almost choked, I wasn’t in the other room. I wasn’t even feet away. I was lying right beside her on the hotel bed. We were touching.
My four-year-old daughter was on the other side of her.
My husband was within arm’s reach as well, on his computer, on the next bed in a very small hotel room.
I was on my iPhone, scrolling through pictures on Facebook–pictures of our trip, the same pictures my husband was busy uploading.
I vaguely remember the sound of coins jingling together, but we had given our older two girls little change purses and some money to play with. (We will not be doing this again–not until their little sister is older, at least.)
Here’s my precious girl a couple weeks after the incident.
It wasn’t until our 4-year-old frantically climbed over her sister and began yelling: “Get those coins out of your mouth! Get them out!” did we notice what was happening.
“Mommy!” our little girl shouted louder. “Sister swallowed the coins!”
Except, she hadn’t swallowed them. She coughed up two Costa Rican coins, the size of nickels.
But then she stopped coughing. She couldn’t talk. She wasn’t breathing. Her eyes filled with horror.
Our older two girls became frantic, and I screamed at my husband to do something. I knew he knew the heimlich because he had had to use it on a friend in college. I lived with that friend the year we were engaged.
According to her story, she was choking on a chicken nugget at a party, and my husband leaped over a papasan chair and saved her life.
We both knew this was the real deal. When I was pregnant with her, we had taken a class on infant and child safety.
Here’s my sweet girl after our Mommy & Me swim class earlier this summer.
“Don’t perform the heimlich if they can still cough and talk,” I imprinted the instructor’s words on my brain. “If they stop, they are really choking.”
From then on out, if my girls seemed to be choking, I’ve always said: “Cough! Say ‘Mommy’!”
That night, I held her on the edge of the bed. “She is not coughing, Will!” I shouted. “Say ‘Mommy’! Say ‘Mommy’!”
Will bent her petite toddler frame over his hands now locked into a fist and began thrusting.
We prayed.
She threw up the quarter.
She was lethargic for about an hour after and started a raspy cough for the whole next week, but she was fine.
But she might not have been.
It all happened in an instant.
I was there, but I wasn’t there.
I was there, physically, but my mind was in a different place.
I don’t write this post to condemn any mom over iPhone use. Rather, I write it with a humbled heart because how many other times have my children needed me for whatever reason, and my mind was elsewhere?
I don’t condemn the use of technology by any means, but at times it does rob us of our focus that should be directed toward something more important. I know it does for me, at least.
These are the three coins she had in her mouth; the quarter is the one that got stuck.
Two things:
1. Please be cautious with small objects.
I’m the mom who still cuts up grapes and hot dogs into tiny pieces for my 3-year-old. But, somehow, she grabbed the coins from her sister while I was otherwise engaged.
Since telling this story to several friends, we’ve learned of others who have had to use it. Learn to use it with an infant and a child (it’s different for children under 1). It could save a life.
Have your children ever had a choking incident? What did you do?
Original article and pictures take thehumbledhomemaker.com site
