panic

I love being a mum. Really I do. But it has it’s moments. And today I experienced two moments that were filled with panic and hysteria and I’m pretty much spent now.

The first occurred this morning. I put on my last few hundred grams of MTE Bin 549, and the kids were playing outside right beside me. I turned my back on Anastasia for a few minutes to talk to Ezekiel, and quick as a flash she was gone. I was beside myself, yelling and screaming her name, but she didn’t answer. Praise God, within a minute or so I heard my mother calling out that she was upstairs playing with the cat (we live in a duplex underneath my parents’ house). They’d heard her talking to Mitten, heard me screaming for Anastasia, and quickly realised what had happened. Thankfully, we live in an exceptionally quiet cul-de-sac with little traffic. I’ve spent the rest of the afternoon being worked up over the ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda’ factor, and feeling very stressed and guilty.

Then, this evening, Zeke was up after Anastasia had gone to bed and was demanding more food. Somehow he managed to get a piece of pizza dough stuck in his throat and started choking. He was going blue and I panicked. Fortunately, Andrew kept his head, grabbed him, swatted him between the shoulder blades, and then stuck his finger into the little guy’s mouth and pulled out the obstruction. By this time, Ezekiel was a terrifying shdae of grey, and seemed to pass out, locking his teeth around to Drew’s finger. I was halfway towards the phone to call an ambulance when Zeke regained consciousness and started crying. I’ve never been happier to hear that noise in my life.