the aquarium, the girls WIN, and my first time performing the Heimlich

For having no spine, these invertebrates look plenty pokey don’t they?  I just thought they looked picturesque the way they were sitting there.  We’ve been to the aquarium several times now but I always manage to see at least one new type of sea life I didn’t know existed.

Sophie asked to have her picture taken in the scuba gear for the first time.  She looks excited to swim with the sharks!  Oddly, Tessa (my literally scared of everything girl, scared of pictures, stuffed animals, people, loud sounds, etc.) loves to touch the starfish and will even touch the sting rays.  But her crazy brave big sis vehemently says, “NO thank you!” when asked if she wants to touch a starfish, Sophie will even start crying at the prospect!  Weird.  And you can’t even get her 5 feet within the sting ray petting tank.  I don’t know if I will ever fully understand my children, and I’m afraid they will only get more complicated as they grow into… teenagers!  (Can you imagine, the horror?  I feel totally unprepared to mother 2 teenage girls in 10 years.)  Fortunately, I have 10 more years to prepare myself.

Anyway, moving on…  The aquarium has a few little areas for the kids to play along the way.  I try to get a picture of me with the kids every once in awhile, I takes some effort to get Dan on board, the kids (Tessa was the only taker this time) over, hand over the camera etc.  But I do appreciate everyone humoring me because I want pictures of me with the kids too!  The tank behind us is HUGE with giant fish bigger than Dan and sea turtles (of course none of them decided to swim into our frame).  If you coming at the right time during the day they even have mermaids come swim!

The girls (and Dan) were oober sleepy.  My girls had only napped in the car that day (you may have noticed they are wearing the same thing from the zoo post with Gpa Q a couple posts ago, that’s because this was the same day).  Dan and Soph were happy to find a place to take a load off which Tess preferred to stand around staring off into space trying to get left behind.  Look at that sleepy face!

Here’s Sophie pretending to be a monkey.  She kept yelling, “I need BANANA!”  I love her dress and have to brag for a second about where I got it.  Please excuse this, *SIDE STORY*:  I was searching Craig’s List a couple weeks ago trying to find some cheap snow pants for Sophie. (Since she usually only wears them once or twice a season I don’t want to keep buying new ones ever year.  They are over $20.) In my search I found a “fall/winter clothing lot” for $40.  It had everything, listen to this:  30 shirts long and short sleeved, 9 pairs of jeans, 5 leggings, snow pants, snow coat, snow boats, 4 hoodies, 2 fleece jackets, 5 cardigans, 9 dresses, 9 pj’s, and over 30 hair bows to match the clothes!  And they were all in really good condition (no holes or stains) and name brands (mostly old navy, gap, gymboree and children’s place).  All for $40??  Yes please!  It was an awesome find.  And now Sophie has more clothes than she’s ever had for a season and I’ve spent a fraction of what I’ve ever spent. 

I love finding good deals.

Here’s Tessa with her favorite person, “Tami.”  When Cami’s around I am most definitely 2nd place, if Tess falls down she doesn’t want me to help her up, it’s, “NO, Tami help!”  I think it’s pretty sweet how much she loves Cami, and don’t mind getting a break from being at Tessa’s beck-n-call. :)  These 2 tigers are brothers and were being really cute licking each other’s fur and stuff.

I failed to get a picture of any one else who came, including: Matt, Lily, Grandpa Tom, Grandma Nina, Kim and Jake.  Sorry about that, epic fail on my part.  But we were happy to have you with us even though I have no proof you were there. :)

That night we played an EPIC (card) game of hand and foot in which, after a slow start, THE GIRLS WON!!!! As soon as the results were in Matt said, looking around the table at the guys, “this never happened,” and followed that up with, “I will deny the girls have ever won this game.”  So I took a picture of the score paper.  HA HA HA!  Apparently, the guys always win.  Let it go down in history:

 

The next day we all ate dinner at Matt and Cami’s with the same group of people (again, no pictures, sorry).  I mention it only because we had a pretty scary thing happen that night.  After dinner we were sitting around talking in the living area while Sophie and Tess were playing with the magnetic white boards in the kitchen (right next to us, and visible if we turned our heads).  This picture is from a different night, but I included it as a reference of the area.   

On the far side of the boards you can see the marble tracks.  Well, the girls don’t really understand how the marble tracks work but if we make a course for them they know how to put a marble in the top, watch it go down and land in the bowl at the bottom.  They love it!  Anyway, they were playing in there when Grandma Nina said she thought I should go check on Tessa.  I was mostly just listening to them and intervening if someone was crying or they came and asked me for something since I was trying to visit with our family and friends.  Something in Nina’s voice made me run into the kitchen where I arrived just in time to see Tessa running into the laundry room alone.  She was holding her mouth weird and crying so I asked her what was in her mouth.  I didn’t give her a chance to answer really, I just swept a marble out with my finger.  Then the crying stopped and turned to gasping, the gasping turned into a terrified face, wide eyes, and no sound!  I didn’t take her long at all to get blue around the lips.  She was definitely choking!  I was horrified.  I picked her up and ran her into the room with everyone else screaming for Dan to help me as I turned her upside down on my arm and performed the Heimlich (actually it was Matt who hit her in the back for me, because I hesitated for some reason).  I later found out that I did it incorrectly and children 1+ receive the Heimlich the same way as adults, in an upright position.  Anyway, after a couple blows she started crying again!  Her normal coloring quickly returned.  What a relief!!!  The only strange thing is that nothing had come out.  So we figured she had swallowed the obstruction (probably a marble).  It’s now been 1 week and 5 days since the incident and I’ve been searching all of her bowel movements and no marble yet!  I’m a little baffled by that but we’ve been in contact with her doctor’s office who tell me not to worry unless she gets sick or has pain in her gut which would indicate a blockage.  On the bright side it’s a nice round object that shouldn’t harm her insides.  Man was that scary!  That was our first real emergency as parents and I have to say I am surprised (and very disturbed) that Tessa was running away to be alone, SO CREEPY huh?  I always thought my kids would come to me if they were in trouble!  Afterwards everyone was talking like that’s what kids “always” do, I didn’t know that!  Creepy.  I hate to think what could have happened if Nina didn’t notice there was something wrong with Tessa.  I am so grateful that Tessa is ok, and have held my kids extra tight ever since that night.  I can’t believe how close we came to losing her.  So my advice is to loose the marbles!  If you have any in your house.  Have you ever had an emergency in your home?  How did you handle it? You better believe that I was there on the front row at our Relief Society meeting the next week and taking notes when we went over first-aid and CPR, what a blessing that was.