Poor Ginger

Can you believe that a baby this cute has had the roughest couple of weeks? I don't know who has had a harder time: me, Ken, or Ginger. I would say it is a tie between me and Ken. Ginger seems back to her normal cute self within just a few minutes.

Episode 1: A week and a half ago, I was cleaning my room. It was only in a semi, semi-messy state (totally cleaner then usual). Ginger is following me around, playing around on the floor and walking in and out of the bathroom. I run a few papers up to Ken in his office. I don't even stop to chat or anything because he is on a conference call, and I come straight back downstairs.

But I hear Ginger crying a very strange cry. Before I even get to her I just know that she is choking on a magnet. How do I know this? It can only be a whispering of the Spirit. How would she have gotten a magnet from my room, right??? Plus I hadn't even got to a point where I could see her yet.

I try to swipe it out of her mouth, it doesn't work. I go deeper, I still can't feel it. I end up ramming my finger all the way down her throat and can barely touch it. So I turn her on her tummy and whack her hard on her back. Flip her over try to swipe again. Nothing happens. I flip her onto her tummy and whack her hard again. Nothing still. Sit her up and lean her forward and she ended up coughing it out. It was the longest 5 minutes of my life. It was so awful. Not only did she cough up the magnet but also quite a bit of blood. The magnet was encased in plastic that had chipped and I think it scratched her throat.

The bleeding stopped and she was fine. I was not. Either Ken or I followed her all around the house for the next two days, we also did major cleaning that involved throwing away a bunch of little toys.


Episode 2- At the Pumpkin Patch Ginger liked walking all around. And then she would fall. She is a pretty relaxed baby so it didn't bother her too much until she fell into stickers. I picked her up and noticed a few of those nasty suckers. She wanted to walk again, we were in a little different place, but of course she would fall every 3rd step. This time she ended up with 30 of those awful things. I took her to a picnic table to clean her off.

I kept holding her but she would squirm down so I and my friend looked to see if there were stickers at a new spot. Nope! But she is fast and quickly walked away and fell again. I pick all the stickers off again, I'm just thankful that she is wearing pants. This time there is no way I'm putting her down.

We move to the Barn with the Pumpkins. The floor is dirt with Hay strewn about on it. Surely, there can't be any stickers... Oh Wait, yes there can! Of course I didn't know this until Ginger complained and I had to pick out another 20 or so. And then my friend sees a sign right in front of the children's play area that says to be careful of Stickers and Fire Ants. Seriously! Right in front of where the kiddies are supposed to play, and we actually paid an entrance fee to be there.

The worst part came at home when we had to use tweezers to pick out 5 slivers out of my babies legs. It was awful! She also had all these tiny scratches all over her legs. Ginger hardly complained, but I felt like the worst mom in the world for letting her walk around at the Pumpkin Patch.

Episode 3- On Thursday I dropped Ken, Rose, and Darin at Darin's football practice. Me, Nathan, and Ginger went across town to Nathan's Soccer Practice.

When we get to the field I get the stroller out of the back. I had a large Plastic Tub in the back that started to fall out. This same Tub I had thoughts in my head about all day long. Like, "Oh I should bring in the tub so the crayons don't melt." and then talk myself out of it because it wasn't even very hot outside. Or I would think, "I should send the boys out to get it." and then talk myself out of that because I didn't want to interrupt their playing. Well, that was a mistake. And driving over to the field I felt extremely nervous. We were late so I was rushing and I kept praying that we would just get their safely. But I felt really nervous. So when we got there safely I was relieved.

Anyway as I pull the stroller out of the back, the tub starts to fall out. Being lazy I just use the back door to slam it in. I had to hit it with the door a couple of times for it to fully close. Then I go to Nathan and help him tie his shoes. He runs off to practice, and I shut the door. Then I hear a faint click. Actually it didn't feel faint at all, to me it sounded like a blasting horn. And I run to the back door. And I hear that little click too.

In my Suburban there is a button in the trunk area on the side about 2/3 of the way up. It will lock or unlock your doors. But it doesn't lock immediately, not until all the doors are shut. And it will lock the doors first and then a few seconds later it will lock the trunk. We know this because we use it alot and at first we were surprised that even though it had locked the passenger doors we have been able to still open the trunk.

My forcing the tub in made it hit the button, and as soon as I heard the first click I started panicking. Ginger was still belted into her carseat. She got locked in the car!
I ran around the car pounding at every door, and motioned for my friend to come over and let me use her phone (mine of course was locked in the car). Then I pretty much lost it when I realized I don't even know Ken's cell phone number by memory. It's just programed into our phones and his is a weird one because he uses a Blackberry from work almost exclusively now and the area code is for California. I called my Dad. I wasn't very coherent, and my friend Jean took her phone back and called 911.

The Fireman came and all they did was wait until the Locksmith arrived. It wasn't hot outside. Ginger was in the shade and she wasn't even upset when she arrived. The fireman only break windows if she is in distress like if it is hot outside. After about 15 minutes she started crying and that was completely awful. I couldn't leave her side outside the window, and I couldn't stop crying. The funny thing is that the click was super loud to me, but I couldn't even hear Ginger's crying, I could just see her. I actually think that was probably a huge blessing. I am very grateful that Jean was there to by my side as she tried to comfort me.

Finally the locksmith came and I was able to get her out. However it was only a minute before Ken got there with his set of keys. I was glad that he was able to make it even though we didn't end up using his keys, just so I could have his arms to collapse into. I am really thankful for my Dad who knows how to drive fast. I don't think I can ever tease him about getting a speeding ticket again. He drove from the Stake Center (where he was at) to the Elementary School and dropped off my mom (where Ken was at), and then all the way by the Outlet Mall just to take Ken and the keys to me. (Ken didn't have a car since I had dropped him off). Usually just the trip from our house to the practice field takes 20 minutes. And my Dad probably drove about 45 miles in 25 minutes!

Ginger recovered after about 10 minutes. All around her eyes were red. I don't think she has ever cried for more then 5 minutes at a time in her whole life. She is really easy-going most of the time and it doesn't take much to calm her down. To see her crying for 15 minutes and not be able to do anything was horrific.
When we got home I didn't want to let go of her, even though she wanted to explore. And we made her sleep in bed with us. She tossed and turned all night and I don't think she was very comfortable. She kept pushing all of the blankets off and squirming away. But I couldn't help it, I wanted her close to me.

We canceled going to an Adult Ward Activity because I was not going to leave her with a babysitter. I've only ever done that once anyways. And I also decided to not go visit Ken when he goes on his next business trip. He had invited me to come up over the weekend and talked to my parents about watching the kids.

He is staying for a a week and 2 days because he is supposed to meet up with a guy at headquarters and train him. But the week the guy was coming is the week of Ginger's birthday. Ken arranged it that he would do his normal headquarters trip (that he hasn't done since July) the week before, stay the weekend, train the guy Mon & Tues and take the red-eye so he would get home at 8 am the morning of Ginger's birthday on Wednesday.

I was kind of on the fence if I should go or not, it's really hard for me to leave the kids especially Rose and Ginger because they are so young, and I was kind of thinking of taking Ginger with me anyways. But after these episodes, I don't feel comfortable leaving the kids, and Ken has dis-invited me anyways. With the way I've been feeling that makes him the best husband and dad in the world to me!