Acorns

Edith is starting to move on a tiny bit from the oral phase. Not much! But a tiny bit. This weekend when I took her to the playground, she was actually pretty interested in playing with stuff using her hands and she went maybe two minutes before trying to put a wood chip in her mouth, whereas previously, it was repeatedly without pause. I look forward to not having to hover over her constantly swatting things away from her mouth. However, the downside to this is that when she does want to eat something, she is much faster and more decisive about it, so it’s hard to intervene in time, and also what she mostly wants to eat are acorns.

Of all the things on the playground, I fear acorns the most (second only to dog poop) because they are so perfectly designed to choke on. This past weekend, I dug acorns out of her mouth three separate times, and the last time when I went to dig one out, she resisted and then fell full out flat on her back, which panicked me a bit, because she could so easily have inhaled the acorn while startled. She didn’t, though, and when I successfully retrieved it, she had a screaming meltdown and we had to go home.

I listen to a podcast in which one of the hosts has a terrier who (like many terriers) regularly eats things while on his walks that then necessitate emergency surgery, and after a few too many of these incidents, she purchased a mesh bag that can be placed over his head on walks so that he can still see and enjoy the fresh air, but he can’t eat stuff before she can stop him.

Look, obviously you could NEVER do this with a toddler. Haha, I am just joking.

Unless…?