Do you ever have those days where you feel totally inadequate as a mother?  Not sure if this should really be classified as dandiness, but there is a positive ending, so I guess classify it as kind of dandy?  Ruby is still not crawling, but she has figured out how to roll to an intended target with ease.  She knows what she wants and she’s quick about.  I honestly think she’s starting to grasp the concept that everything doesn’t belong to her.  I swear she just knows when it’s something that belongs to her older brother.  She gets this glimmer in her eye and goes for it.  At just under 9 months she’s already a little bit naughty.  When she and I had our girl’s night Ruby went straight for the dinosaurs that Banjo had left out.  Of course she did.  She sees him playing with them and knows they are his.  I even caught her in the act with one of Banjo’s favorites:

She has that total look of “Busted!” written all over her face.

Don’t worry I was totally supervising this whole time.  I mean what kind of parent allows her child to play with non age appropriate toys???  Read on to find out…

Today Ruby decided that she needed to make her way around the corner to the game closet.  I mean it is an area that is totally off limits to her, so of course she was just drawn right to it.  And she discovered this:

On the floor, not in the closet, and it became her accomplice in crime…

 I heard the clatter that could have only been the sound of the Hippo food being moved around.  Rounding the corner I found her with both fists clinched around several plastic marbles.  (Thank goodness they are now made of plastic instead of the glass marbles in the Hungry Hippo game when I was a kid.)  Her left fist was at her lips.  The expression on her face was strangely reminiscent of the look when she’s trying super hard to get a puff into her mouth:

I grabbed her and to her dismay pried the marbles from her grip.  Then I counted.  Only 17 marbles.  What kind of game has an odd number of pieces?  I knew then that is was highly probable that she had succeeded in getting some number in her mouth.  Sure enough the game comes with 20.

I remained calm and called the pediatrician’s office immediately.  Confidently I told the nurse that she didn’t make any choking or gagging sounds.  That there appeared to be no signs of respiratory distress.  Then Ruby began to cough and cough and cough.  (She had coughed a couple of times in the night,  but not like this.)  The nurse heard the cough through the phone and told me to bring her in.  I did not hesitate in doing so.

I walked my little marble eater into the office with my head held in shame.  I had failed.  Fortunately Ruby’s breath sounds were normal and the chest X-ray was negative for a foreign body.  Thank goodness!!!  But the cough?  Ruby has croup.  What were the odds???

It still didn’t change the fact that I felt awful about the whole situation.  I beat myself up for hours on end.  How could I allow this to happen?  What kind of mother am I?  I’m so winning the award for most obliviously negligent mommy of the year.  Get your acceptance speech ready now.  When suddenly… Wait…a…minute.  Ruby is so ahead of the game that she knows already how to make sure to be seen by a doctor to get her croup diagnosed.  *wink*   I guess I must be doing something right.

Tomorrow is a new day and I’m still an alright mom.