Connor's First Steps

Dad got tickets for us to the Astros game in the Diamond section (with the private clubhouse and indoor buffet area) about a week after you turned 1. By this time, you were walking well as long as we held both your hands. During the game, I was walking with you in the clubhouse, and I noticed that I let go of your hands and you kept going another few steps! I thought it was a fluke, so I tried it again and again. By the third time, I realized that you were officially taking your first steps!

I went outside to our seats and exclaimed to your Dad that you were taking your first steps. He promptly followed us back inside where you started stepping back and forth between us. It was so exciting for all of us, and of course, you were enjoying all of the attention and cheering! And wouldn’t you know, it was the one time we didn’t have either our camera OR camcorder for the event!

The next day we captured some video of you walking to Collin and Kevin at home. From that point forward, you took walking at your own pace. Until about a month later, you would still switch between crawling and walking at will (unlike your cousin Makenna who took her first steps and never looked back!) You were still pretty wobbly and didn’t become a great walker until around 14 months.

Signing Times

We started teaching you sign language early on to see if it would help you communicate better with us. It was amazing to me how quickly you picked it up. Your first sign that I can remember clearly was “airplane”. We’d take you outside and you would hear the airplane, but it was hard for you to spot them at first. When Dad would show you the airplane sign, he would also make the noise “Sshhh”, so soon thereafter you were making the sign while saying “Sshhh” when you would spot an airplane in the sky.

Another one of your first signs was “Dog” (the “dog” sign is patting your thigh and sometimes snapping after you pat.) We would see dogs in the neighborhood or at friends’ homes and you loved them! One day I noticed that you saw a dog and started patting your belly and saying “Daw”. It was so cute! No matter how much we tried to get you to pat your thigh, you always patted your belly instead. Soon thereafter, you were so good at saying “Daw” (for dog) that you stopped signing it altogether.

Another sign you learned was “Bird” but it took you several weeks to get that one down since you didn’t quite have your pinchers working yet! Around age 1, you also learned “milk”, “eat”, “more”, “all done”, “fish”, and “banana”.

You learned “banana” almost instantaneously when we were in the grocery store one evening. Of course, bananas were one of your favorite foods. So I stopped in the produce section and picked up some bananas while showing you the “banana” sign. Right then and there you started doing the sign back to me! I was so impressed with your signing skills.

Around 14 months, I noticed that you started putting 2 signs together. You would sign “more banana”, “eat milk”, or “eat banana”. Very impressive.

Big Scare

Soon after you turned 1, there was a time that we were both sick (you had an ear infection and pink eye, and I had a sinus infection and pink eye) and had to stay at home for a few days. On the 1st sick day, I was feeling miserable but Dad wasn’t able to miss work due to a deadline. So I tried my best to keep up with you (even though you were sick, you were still active and busy) even though I was far less than 100%.

 
At one point in the early afternoon, I was sitting on the couch surfing the Internet while you were playing with your toiletry bag (where I kept your diaper cream, medicines, comb, and all other little items to keep you groomed and healthy). I noticed you playing with a 2-3 ounce liquid bottle of Tylenol with Codeine (it was prescribed for you a few months earlier for the long plane ride to Hawaii in case you experienced ear trouble). I didn’t think twice about it because the cap was childproof and you enjoyed shaking the bottle for the noise effect.

After a few minutes, I looked up again and saw that you were sucking on the cap of the medicine bottle. Something about this struck me as odd, so I got up to look at the bottle. When I pulled it out of your mouth, I noticed that, OH MY GOSH, the cap was OFF and the bottle was completely EMPTY! I paused for a moment as the realization sunk in that you could have drank the entire contents of the bottle (it was previously near full). How could this happen – the cap was childproof!

Immediately I began to panic. I think I screamed “Oh my God!” It scared you to see my reaction, like you did something wrong, and you started crying. I was freaking out but also trying to console you. In my head I was thinking, “This is it. This is the moment I have dreaded – when Connor’s life is at risk. This is what it feels like to be one of those parents with a child whose life is in danger.”

Without a doubt, I knew I needed to make a phone call. My first instinct was to dial 911. I hit the numbers in the phone, 9-1-1, but then I paused and wondered if I should really do that (will they question my abilities as a mother?). Instead I dialed Jeff at work. Fortunately he answered right away. At this point, I was near hyperventilating. But I still had some wits about me, because I was searching the rug for stains of medicine that may have spilled. I also noticed that you had some spots on your clothes, but not enough to account for 2-3 ounces, and the rug was patterned which made it hard to spot spills.

Between loud breaths, I told Jeff that I thought you drank the entire bottle of Tylenol with Codeine. He was very calm and asked how much spilled versus was swallowed. I still couldn’t find any spill spots on the rug, so Jeff stated that we should call the doctor. The doctor referred us to Poison Control. We called Poison Control and a nice man started asking all the right questions (how old/big you were, how much was in the bottle, how much was spilled on the floor, etc.). By this time, I was very unsettled because the man told us that Codeine was very dangerous for little kids. I started balling, and you were upset to see me crying, so you would come to me and give me hugs and kisses (my sweet Conman!).

Somewhere around this time, I finally noticed two distinct areas on the rug where the medicine had spilled. It was 2 spots, each about the size of a baseball in diameter. When I told Jeff and the Poison Control man this, they both breathed a huge sigh of relief. The spots were big enough to indicate that you had not consumed much of the medicine and therefore you would be fine.

This was one of the scarier moments of being a Mom so far. The thought of something happening to you, especially when it could’ve been prevented (by me), made me feel incredibly irresponsible and guilty. I told all my friends with kids about my lesson learned: Childproof is not necessarily childproof!