Happy New Year!

We had a mildly traumatizing start to the New Year. We both woke up to the sound of Pam chomping on something plastic in our bathroom - which is in itself not that unusual. She has a total plastic fetish and will climb into our drawers, the recycling, the cabinets and my purse to get to anything she can crunch happily between her teeth. However, she took it to the next level this morning when she choked on her inedible 'treat'. Joshua made it out of bed and to her side much more quickly (not shocking, seeing as how I am essentially a beached whale in the mornings these days) and by the time I got into the bathroom, Pam was gasping for air and Joshua had most of his hand in her mouth trying to fish out her beloved plastic death trap.

The next 10 seconds is sort of a blur, probably because while I am 100% comfortable resuscitating a 9 pound choking and gasping infant, a 9 pound cat is a different story. I managed to (sort of) give her the kitty heimleich manuever, she let out a huge yak, and then somehow she must have gotten the piece of plastic back into her throat and promptly swallowed it instead of throwing it up. In the meantime, Joshua had gotten himself dressed, including gloves and a hat, and had gotten the cat carrier from the basement. Joshua tends to get ready at the pace of a second grader who hates school, so I think the sight of him standing in the kitchen ready to whisk Pam off to the emergency vet was almost as surprising as starting the New Year off by resuscitating a cat.

By this point Pam was in the cat carrier, breathing calmly with the tiniest bit of a wheeze, and looking at us like we were insane (she's never seen Joshua get ready so fast either). I was on the phone with the vet, who told us that if Pam was in no visible distress and was breathing easily, we could just keep a close eye on her and not worry about rushing her to the ER.

We let her out of the carrier and she promptly ran away from us, probably because she was worried we were going to start yelling and banging on her ribcage again. Of course, I burst into tears, because I love my little zoo so fiercely, and also because I burst into tears at anything these days (see above re: beached whale. And also, a serious lack of sleep).

So to sum up the first morning of 2011, we haven't made any New Years Resolutions yet. I haven't gotten out of my pajamas or left the house yet. I've been curled up on the couch with a sleepy Pam, trying to make sure she isn't developing aspiration pnuemonia. We were watching the Rose Bowl Parade, but when I fell asleep after one too many descriptions of floats covered in mums and oregano, Joshua took advantage of the situation to start watching back to back episodes of all the Discovery reality shows I cannot stand. The baby can't decide if she would like to stick her butt into the left or right side of my ribcage, so she's trying out both options every half an hour or so. I really dislike putting my feet up (both literally and figuratively) but I'm doing it anyways because the New Year has also brought me a wicked case of the cankles. I think because the huge anticipation of the baby is still looming over us, the New Year is almost anticlimatic. For me, the world starts shaking when the baby decides to make her appearance.

But I do have Pam to thank for getting my heart racing this morning. She's our first baby, the first pet we had together, and I love that silly little cat so much. Seeing her terrified expression when she couldn't breathe was incredibly scary, and of course my mind jumped to all the horrifying potential scenarios that come along with being responsible for a tiny human. I was so proud of Joshua for staying so calm and literally being ready to rush her to the ER in less than a minute. I don't know what 2011 really has in store for us, but if he can start off the year leaping from a dead sleep to save the day like that, I think things are going to be just fine.