Hoppy Easter! Cough cough cough

So, of course, the Easter Bunny stopped at our house yesterday. My kids aren't big candy fans - so we will probably be adding to the "Halloween candy" and "Christmas candy" collection that never seems to disappear.

I invested in a chocolate only Easter, because jelly beans and other confections always take a back seat to chocolate anyway!

This is the first year since Dakotah was a baby that we didn't hide Easter eggs for the kids. Unlike some of you reading this blog, we don't have outdoor hunts, as it is still cold and muddy in back yards.

Our family tradition is leaving baskets full of empty plastic eggs that the Easter bunny then takes and fills with jelly beans and chocolate, and hides them all over the house. He then fills the baskets with small Spring time toys...bubbles, jumpropes, a new set of clothes, etc.

But, with what is usually 100-125 plastic eggs to hide, we are always hiding them in the same places in our house. And Paige isn't really a hunter...she's more of a "bring me chocolate" kind of girl.

So it was decided that Dakotah had hunted in the same places enough times, and that we'd take a break from it this year....perhaps Paige will be more interested next year.

Paige did have a hunt at school in her Living & Learning Room, but she was more interested in re-hiding the eggs in the cornmeal table than she was in actually finding them.

And yesterday, as she was looking through her basket, she picked up every plastic egg and licked it for some reason. I think its that age old kid trick of licking your food so your sibling doesn't steal it!! :)

Holidays like Easter, Halloween, Valentine's Day, etc. are really nerve-wracking for me, as they are days that make choking a big issue for us. There's always little candies laying around, and I'm always nervous that Paige will pick something up and try to eat it and choke without me seeing it.

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Well, she didn't choke on any candy, so that was good.

Dinnertime was a whole other story. There was a lot of chaos going on at the table, and I was distracted and she took a few big bites of food. They managed to get lodged in her esophagus, and she had an episode called "stacking" which is very common in kids with her esophageal problems.

What happens is that her esophagus has some scarring from so many surgeries, and therefore isn't able to expand and push food down like the rest of ours do. So, if she swallows a piece of food too big, it will just sit in one spot and then subsequent food will stack on top of it.

The real issue is that as her esophagus gets "full," her trachea starts to close. This can happen immediately, or hours after eating.

That's why people with EA have fatal chokes...they don't choke to death with someone watching them while they are eat, but later when they are sleeping, or slowly without anyone realizing what went wrong.

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Anyway, this time, Paige was able to bring up the food herself, after some wretching and gagging.

Its always a stressful reminder that we have to be ever watchful of her. I suppose in some twisted way, its a good thing it happens every once in a while, so that we don't get too complacent in our care of her.

She's not groggly like she sometimes is afterward, although she was pretty pale for a while after it happened.

But, boy oh boy, she's been full of mischief today! I think I've run about 10 miles just chasing her through the house.

Maybe she's sensing Mommy is feeling a little softhearted today...