Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Choking hazard...

By the time you're on your 4th kid, you'd think you had discovered all the various household items that your kids could possibly put in their mouths and potentially choke on. The things I've been most worried about with Chloe are her older sisters' toys. Well, Chloe found another item today that I never thought of. Before I go any further, let me say that she is fine. She just scared me to death!

Chloe loves to go into the bathroom with her sisters (or us for that matter). In fact she screams and carries on if you shut the door. Usually she just tries to climb on one of the step stools or tear up toilet paper. Today she found a new "toy".

Everyone's toilets are bolted to the floor in 2 places, one on either side. Toilet manufacturers cover up these bolts with decorative plastic "knobs". They don't glue these knobs on so you can take apart your toilet if need be. Well, these knobs are the perfect size to fit in a one year olds mouth. They fit in tight and are very hard to get out.

Chloe followed Elise into the bathroom after we got home from preschool. I was putting things away, changing laundry around, and just generally not paying attention when I heard this odd slurpy coughy noise. Thank God those knobs are just big enough not to fit down a toddlers throat because she would have sucked it right down there. You could see the panic on her face as she walked towards the kitchen with this sticking out of her mouth. It took me a few minutes to pry it out of her mouth, and I even cut her mouth under tongue a little bit. She immediately started screaming and laid her head on my shoulder. Poor little thing.

She's fine now and running around playing. Needless to say our toilets all have an ugly uncovered bolt on either side of them and the little plastic knobs are in a ziploc bag up in our hall closet until she's much older! So if you have little ones or frequently have them at your house, either keep the bathroom door shut or remove the knobs please!

Here's some pictures if you're not sure what I'm talking about:

2 comments:

I'm Not Skippy said...

Oh my. That's not good. I'm glad she is OK. We try keep the door closed to the bathrooms and office (if he sees the office door open he wants to bang on the computer keyboard.

Jamie said...

Poor Chloe. We have naked toilets too. Emily found those last week along with unrolling the toilet paper (she is as bad as the kitten). I swear she will put anything in her mouth. Miles never did that until now actually which is weird. We have gates in almost all door ways because of her eating habits lol