it was during those milliseconds that time, literally, stood still. every movement made by my hands and feet felt like they were done in ultra slow motion while inside my rib cage, my heart was just about ready to go into ventricular fibrillation.

i’ve never been that scared for my baby.

at first i thought she was just pretend coughing because she does that sometimes for attention, which is cute. but when the coughing led to teary eyes, facial redness, and a lot of saliva coming out of her mouth, it wasn’t even cute anymore. it was frightening.

all because of a fucking piece of dry leaf.

i repeat: a small, fucking piece of dead leaf she must have picked up and put in her mouth without us noticing.

a couple of quick blows to her back while turning her upside down and it was over. not even 3 minutes, i reckon. but it took a while before i could normally breathe again. she seemed okay straight away. i wasn’t. i guess being a mom does that to you. you continue to worry, almost to a point of obsession. scrutinizing your kid with the tenacity of a scientist looking for a single bacterium under a microscope. or an astronomer searching for an asteroid on a cloudy night. a clue. anything. all the while trying to keep your shit together because you wouldn’t wanna rub off your self-inflicted stress on your kid and then they’ll blame you for infecting them for the rest of their lives.

but, as they say, all’s well that ends well. heart atack aside, the shoot turned out great and my baby looks adorable in the pictures.

i’m biased like that.

*raven at 10 months old