This morning I was going through the usual routine with Trey; feeding him his breakfast while listening to NPR on the radio. He was having a great time eating his Gerber Organic Oatmeal Cereal when they announced on the radio that “Gerber is recalling some of its baby food.”

I paused with the next spoonful in front of his mouth.

“The company is pulling its organic rice and oatmeal cereals…” My heart stopped. Trey leaned in trying to get the spoonful of recalled cereal in his mouth.

It is moments like these that really show how amazingly complex our brains are. In that split second a million thoughts went through my head – things like “where’s the phone, I’ll need to call poison control”, “will Heidi be in the OR or will I be able to get a hold of her”, “I’ll need to get him out of this chair if I need to induce vomiting”, “will the neighbor be able to get us to a hospital or should I call an ambulance”, and on and on…

My moment of paranoia was interrupted by the rest of NPR’s sentence “…because some of the packages contain lumps that will not dissolve in milk and are a potential choking hazard.”

WHAT A RELIEF! I felt much better since I always mix it up well and mash the mix into a good puree. Just to be sure I triple-checked the cereal I was feeding him and then we finished our daily morning routine – just a little more carefully than usual.
Related Information:
Gerber Recalls Cereals – New York Times article
Official Gerber press release announcing the recall (pdf)