Scary Moment that I never want to repeat....

So today we had VBS training/planning and I was at the church all morning. We didn't even leave the parking lot until 2:30 and even though it was past nap time, I had to stop at Sam's on the way home. We went inside and I stopped in the book section as always and headed back to the produce. I grabbed the salad stuff I needed and some green grapes for my favorite 20 month old and headed to get the tea bags. Brookelynne of course wanted to start eating the grapes, something I always allow her to do, so every couple of minutes I would pull 3 or 4 out of the container and give them to her to eat. We strolled through the store and up to the front. She was standing in the buggy, next to Brax's carseat (which he was in) and eating grapes, one at a time. All of a sudden she kind of coughed, and at first I thought she had accidentally swallowed some juice down her wind pipe, something that obviously corrects itself after a couple of coughs. A second later I realized that she wasn't just coughing, but choking with her mouth open and her face turning red. I didn't even think, what came next was just my training/instinct taking over. I 'swiped' her mouth out, feeling the grape that was lodged in her throat, but not able to 'get behind it', so I yanked her up out of the buggy, hitting her back with my right hand, as I positioned her on my left hand for the infant/child's version of the Heimlich. Before I could turn her over/hit her again, it popped out and she started screaming. I turned her around and just held her and calmed her down.

It wasn't until minutes later that I started shaking and thinking about all the what ifs. I mean my daughter eats grapes all. the. time. And she's been eating them whole for 6 or 8 months now. She's never had a problem. What if I hadn't been looking at her when this happened? What if we had been at home and she had taken some grapes into the other room (something she often does when she's snacking) and this had happened? Would I have even heard her? Would she have been able to cough it up or get to me in time? What if it happened in the car? There's no way I would be able to get off the road, back to her seat, her out of the seat and try to help her until 45 or 50 seconds after realizing what was happening. Seriously this could have been so much worse and I am so grateful that if it was going to happen that it happened this way and even more grateful that I have had cpr/first aid training to know what to do. Even though I haven't be 'certified' in 5 years, it was like I had been trained yesterday, I just immediately saw the diagrams in my head and began positioning Brooke accordingly. How great is my God that when he created me, he created my brain to work in such a way?!?! So grateful to Him, not only for Brooke being okay, but for being such an amazing creator!