It almost happened to me...

[Mom2BL]

My daughter is almost 15 months. She's my second child and I admit I have been less paranoid with her than I was with my son, allowing her a little more freedom than she probably should have. My son never got into anything, but my daughter is much more adventurous. Today, she was playing with the cap off of the Chic-fil-A milk; not a big deal, right? I saw her playing with it and and chewing on it, but it looked so big, it didn't even occurr to me that she would be able to fit it in her mouth. Wrong. I heard her gaging from the other room, something she does on purpose a lot because she thinks it's funny and gets attention. Often, I just tell her to stop without paying a whole lot of attention to her (if she can cough, she's getting air, actual choking is very quiet), but I did check on her this time because she didn't stop right away. She had weged the whole cap in her mouth (I'm still baffled as to how she managed to do that), and couldn't breathe through her mouth and couldn't get it out herself. I ran over and got it out and nearly fell apart myself - what if I hadn't responded quickly? what if she hadn't made any noise? lots of what if's. It terrified me, but my 3 year old was there and I didn't want to scare him by breaking down. Needless to say, I won't be letting her play with caps of any kind anymore, but it certainly shows me why so many things I think are too big are still considered a choking hazzard. The point is, I'm a pretty laid back mom, especally since my first child was so cautious on his own, but each child is different and the lessons you think you learn with the first don't necessarily apply to the rest. Please just be aware and be careful - it scared the hell out of me!