no george clooney here

Don't worry. Addie is fine. Now. But we did spend 3 hours in the ER and Cap and Addie got to ride in an ambulance.

Without being too dramatic, after all I wasn't there, Addie choked. seriously choked. face purple, can't breathe choking. Cap got her to barf but there was some blood and very smartly he called 911 for an ambulance. I have dreams pretty regularly about trying to call 911 but in my dreams I keep misdialing or getting interrupted and over and over again I try to make the call. We're not sure what she choked on but we're guessing a tortilla chip possibly with or without the assistance of a small chunk of plastic that had broken off the remote. I thought the remote was a no-no because it would mess up all of our setting and short-fuse if she drooled on it. Turns out it's a choking hazard especially if your baby likes to hurl things at fast ball speeds on the floor.

But back to "the incident." Addie has coughed up whatever it was and is breathing fine but the EMTs want to take her into Cedars Sinai as a precaution. Cap sits on the gurney with Addie on his lap and they both get strapped in for their ride to the ER. I forgot to ask Cap if they used the sirens but I think not since he was calling me from his little traveling bed en route. She is also given a stuffed polar bear in the ambulance which they apparently have on hand to give to kids. Brave Cap! Brave Addie!

I got the call at work and meet up with them in the ER waiting room where Addie is chilling out shirtless and shoeless in her army green cargos and a pink bib. With a temperature of 102 (guess who also has an ear infection!), the EMT dude told Cap to keep her shirt off and her shoes were left at home. G.I. Addie.

We feel at this point that everything is fine and Addie is happily babbling away, but we've been told we have to wait to see the doctor. 3 hours later we get our first glimpse of a doctor. This is so not what E.R. is like on TV. It is a little more like Grey's Anatomy because the first doctor we saw looked like she was 14 and told us that she didn't have enough experience and wanted to get a second opinion from the other doctor on duty. When we finally saw him in our little exam room he looked about 21. When did I get old?

Poor Addie is hungry and tired. It's past her bedtime but she very valiantly lay still for her chest x-ray just to make sure she didn't have any sort of foreign object lodged somewhere it shouldn't be. I had asked the experienced doc if we could get some juice so when they rolled a cart into our room, I actually thought it was a snack trolley. Ha! Like they have those. Instead it was a mobile x-ray machine. Cap donned a black with rainbow glitter lead robe and they lay Addie on a tray while Cap held her in place. The x-ray was fine, her fever was normal, she was dosed with antibiotics for her ear infection, and we were finally dismissed. Only it turns out you have to wait another 45 minutes for paperwork. Addie fell asleep on Cap's chest on the exam room bed and at 9:00 we finally got to go home.

I am so proud of Cap, our hero, for handling the scariest situation ever with such presence of mind.