I heard The Baby choking last night. I ran upstairs to find him in his father’s arms. Choking. With his father holding him. I yanked him out of his father’s hands and started slapping him on his back.

Nothing came up.

D: I didn’t have another hand to try to get whatever it was out of his mouth.

Nice. The Baby stopped choking and looked at me. He had a little blood on his lip.

Picking up the phone and leaving a message with the surgeon FIL.

K: Yeah, WE were just wondering if The Baby ate something and then started to bleed, would that be a sign that he had perforated his esophagus or anything?

My FIL is probably thinking this is only a step up from the time I called him and asked his secretary to get him out of the meeting because I had a tick on me and I was sure I had Rocky Mountain spotted fever. That time he calmly reminded me that I live about 1800 miles from the Rockies so this should not be a problem.

The Baby then spent the better part of the night up.  And he was cranky.  He bit me excessively.  I almost threw him out the window.  His father finally conducted an intervention.  We were sent to our separate corners and he continued to cry.  I finally gave up and turned the light on.  He spent the next 1 1/2 hours climbing over me.  I am tired.

When we talked to my FIL today, he mentioned that if The Baby was constipated, we could always feel up his butt to see if we could unlodge the offending item. This surprised me because if whatever it was had to go the 7 miles through the intestines, it seems a little odd that it would just clog stuff up right before the final exit. Really.

It doesn’t matter because not long after, The Baby began to smell horrible. I changed his diaper and there, nestled in his nastiness, was a shiny penny. The kid craps money. What parent could ask for  more?

Back in the days when my job was at its worst and we were taking a minimum of 2 coffee breaks a day, I used to make threats that one day I would just quit the livelihood and get a job as a barista at the Big Coffee Chain where everyone from the office went to hide/catch some sun outside in the spring.  What better revenge than making your boss’s venti mocha latte into a decaf.  That’ll teach you for not awarding me Employee of the Year when I had the best year.  Go sleep under your desk like the rest of the government employees.

Fast forward 4 years later to today.  When, at 6:37 a.m., we got the crazy idea that, on the third day of my friend Danyelle’s coffee shop being open, we needed to drum up a little business for the new biz by running free coffee out to the people stuck on Main Street who were waiting for the train to pass. 

A total of 45 seconds.  I don’t know what was scarier.  A woman coming out of the shadows in the pitch black with free coffee or the fact that I was wearing this. 

Boy sold separately.

Because if I were the person in the car driving down Main Street in what appears to be the middle of the night but is actually the morning and then someone came running out of the shadows brandishing what must be an arsenic-laced coffee and similarly poisoned tea cookies, I’d be hitting the power locks and putting a hand on Roscoe.  I mean, what kind of crazy person is giving out coffee for Free 99?

And I would have missed out on the best cup of coffee within 30 miles. 

Dr:  So how do YOU feel like you are doing as parents?

K:  I think we have made a lot of mistakes.  Don’t you (turning to The Husband)?

D:  Nah, I think we are good.

Dr:  Well, Kristen, what kind of mistakes do you think you have made?

K:  I think someone (nodding in The Husband’s direction) teaching him how to use a drill was probably unwise.  He’s two.  Now you give him one of those play drills and he looks at you like you just handed him a toaster oven.  Without a cord, of course.  Because we all know how much he loves the toaster.  Kid would make toast all day long if given the chance.  Thank God for the ding on the toaster so you have some sort of warning BEFORE he burns the house down.  OK, bad analogy.  But you understand where I am going with this?

D:  (clearly now defensive) It’s not like I showed him how to use a drill bit.

K:  Yeah, cause this one is such a slow learner.  Two more times of watching you use that drill and he’ll have it mastered.

D:  So there will be a couple of holes in the wall.

K:  I don’t care about holes in the wall.  I worried about holes in the appendages.  I really don’t have to know the people in the new ER already.  And what about the time you were letting him use the jigsaw in front of my mother.  Like she doesn’t have enough to worry about.

 D:  He does great with the jigsaw.

I say all of this because yesterday he walked by with The Baby and The Baby was tightly clutching a Philips head screw driver to his chest.  And he was REALLY happy. 

D:  Well he really wanted it and he just grabbed it out of my hand.

Of course.  History is doomed to repeat itself in #2.  Let the games begin.