The Buddy Geek.

I filmed this with a regular digital camera and used windows movie maker for editing.  It is not the best quality video in the world but it was fun and easy.  I am pleased with the results.

Enjoy it and rate it on youtube!

Last night my 2 year old son was playing inside of a laundry basket next to me while I was on the computer. He was laying down in it and playing. He was acting like your average 2 year old would. He was just laying there kicking his legs up in the air and thinking about “who knows what”. He kept folding the sides of the basket over to close himself inside (This was a flimsy basket). All of the sudden I heard a gurgling sound and I reached down and moved the sides of the basket to reveal my son was choking on something. When I looked at him I noticed he had a look of pain on his face.

He was trying to sit himself up but he was choking too much and was having trouble. I grabbed him and immediately flipped him over on his stomach across my lap and began to hit him in the back and telling him to spit it out. Nothing happened at first, but then I started hitting him a little harder and a quarter fell out of his mouth onto the ground. He took a deep breath right after that and started crying. He looked like he was in a lot of pain and was very frightened. I held him close and rubbed his back and told him everything was going to be ok.

It made me feel very uneasy as I just witnessed my son possibly choking to death on a quarter. It is a horrible feeling to see your child like that. It makes you really analyze yourself as a parent and think that you are doing a terrible job. It makes you beat yourself up mentally. I still feel bad about it now as I am writing this. I imagine what I would have done if I was unable to remove the object from his throat and he died, right there in my arms. I would probably never forgive myself and would have many years of counseling and pain.

Of course accidents happen all the time but I still can’t help but to take measures to ensure this doesn’t happen ever again. I am thoroughly cleaning my house and removing every object I can find out of the reach of the child. I was very lucky that I was able to get him to spit out that quarter. After reading the proper way to perform the maneuver I realized that I was missing a step. I forgot to put one fist below the point where the ribs meet the breastbone. This situation could have turned out much worse.

The Heimlich Maneuver

Not too long ago I was curious on how to perform the Heimlich maneuver on little kids because I had caught my son trying to put a small object in his mouth in the past. For those who are not familiar it is very important that you learn this maneuver because it can save your child’s life.

There are actually two ways to perform this maneuver. For a detailed, step by step instruction on how to properly perform the Heimlich maneuver click here.