Maia Mi

Maia has recently become obsessed with a few concepts. First it was 'night' - as she'd never really experienced it before, but now it's dark when she leaves nursery and she just couldn't get over it. "natt ute' (night outside) she'd say when we left the nursery. Again, once we were in the car. And again when we got home "Natt Ute Ogsaa" (night outside too!). like it was amazing it was night everywhere we went. We went outside in the garden and had a look the 'night' and the stars. We had to look again from the bathroom window and again from her bedroom. This went on for about two weeks!!!

Then, just recently I was reading her usual favourite books when she started realising the girl had hurt herself and she just kept wanting to read this one page where the girl fell over. And in the other book this boy and girl fell down a hill (jack and jill) and hurt themselves too. And she just asks to look at these pages now when we have the bedtime story. I have to tell her over and over again what happens. And last night she got obsessed with the Snail in the picture book that is just about to get trodden on. His face is all 'oh no' so now she just says 'snegle ååå neiii!' again and again - we had to read it upstairs this morning and again for breakfast. She'll talk about the 'jente falle ned' (girl fall down) all the way in the car on the way home too. really strange!

Maia swallowed a 5p coin on Saturday night. I know, I know what you're thinking, what was she doing with a 5p piece? and there's no excuse because I was with her. But she often plays with coins and likes to put them in and out of containers. Usually I only let her play with really enormous ones (like the old 50p pieces and some foreign large coins) but she'd found this one in the bathroom....and she was finished with her bath and fiddling with it. Next thing I was changing her nappy and I didn't realise she had it in her hand and suddenly it dropped into her throat. She choked and I hurriedly swung her round to do a heimlich maneouvre, when she suddenly stopped choking and looked at me most surprised. She'd swallowed it!

She seemed totally fine after that and it was only when I phoned NHS Direct once she was in bed that I discovered it could still be really dangerous and still be lodged in her throat & get back up to her windpipe! I slept next to her on a mattress really nervously and woke at her every breath. She was fine though. So now we're hoping it's come out the other end or will soon. But we'll probably have to go to the hospital to have her xrayed or metal detected (!) if we don't see any signs of it as it could be stuck somewhere, in her appendix or somewhere!

Just so glad she seems ok & that she didn't actually choke. My mum told me that a 2 year old girl she' known had died from choking on a coin. From now on I'm not letting Maia near anything small, it's really woken me up to the danger... even if she doesn't put things in her mouth on purpose, it can always be accidental....