1-800 Poison Control

I babysat a lot as a teenager. Everytime I would go the families house, they would show me the list of emergency numbers, emergency medicines and other important stuff. In all of the hours of babysitting, I never had to call Poison Control. Since moving and life pretty much going crazy... we've called poison control 3 times in 3 months. To be honest, we called once in June, and twice this week. Yep, you read that right.. twice this week. Once on Wednesday and again on Friday. I am pretty sure we are going down for the worst parents of the year awards.

When we called in June we were calling for Daniel. I had just given all three boys haircuts and baths, and the twins were insisting on wearing the exact same shirt to bed. Brandon dressed Lincoln and Greyson in the living room, while I finished dressing and brushing Daniel's teeth in the bathroom. While in the bathroom, I yelled out at Brandon, would you mind giving them their medicine? (Aka Benedryl) Sure he responds. I had already dosed Daniel, and thought that he understood that I was talking about the other two. The two that he had standing right in front of his face. Apparently he did not understand what I was asking, because as I looked up, Daniel was drinking his teaspoon of medicine! NOOOOOO! I screamed and started to panic. Brandon calmly found the phonebook, called poison control and announced that he will be okay. Not even five minutes later Daniel was passed out and snoring. He slept for 12 hours.

Fastforward to this week. Being the smart mommy that I am and knowing that we were about to run out of medicine, I purchased some extra at Wal-Mart. For some reason ( I call it laziness, but you can call it what you want), I opened the brand new bottle instead of walking twenty feet to the opened bottle in the bathroom. I gave my snotty nosed little boys their medicine and sent them off to bed. Before going to bed, I always to a once over in the kitchen.. I don't really know what makes me do it. But that Tuesday night, I saw the bottle checked it to make sure it was closed and moved it to the back of the counter. And off to bed I went.

Have I mentioned that Greyson has started waking up at 7:30 every morning, and since he loves his mommy so much and knows that I dearly love my sleep, so he plays in his room for twenty minutes before waking me up around 8:00. I guess on Wednesday morning, Greyson decided to help me out with stuff in the kitchen. When I was gracefully awoken by Greyson kissing me and telling me he was ready to eat, I stumbled into the kitchen to find a pair of scissors on the ground next to a opened package of crescent rolls. As I went to wipe off the scissors, I noticed that my white dish rag was pink and sticky. After a quick rub of my eyes, I then noticed that half of my brand new (minus 3 teaspoons) bottle of Benedryl was almost completely empty. I asked what had happened and Grey told me it went down the hole (aka his mouth). Hmmmm, I thought. I measured out how much was left; 2 teaspoons. I called Brandon after a quick assessment of Greyson's behavior. Brandon panicked and told me to call Poison Control. I thought he was overreacting. I called and talked to my mom, who is a nurse. Her answer: Call Poison Control. I wont deny it, panic started to set in. I dialed the number, talked to the nurse, and quickly the panic subsided. She told me that he would get either irritable or tired. Turns out he got both. While I was still on the phone with the nurse, Greyson passed out on the couch. After about a hour and a half nap, he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Boy was he GROUCHY. He didn't want me to touch him, feed him, lay next to him, talk to him, nothing. I finally convinced him to eat. After that he was a much better and happier kiddo. The nurse called and checked in on him periodically through out the day, which was a great relief to me.

I do make sure to now put all medicine on the top shelf of the cabinets ... I am hoping that keeps him away!

After a smooth 48 hours, we were loading up to head out of town to Oklahoma City for the weekend. Once again being the smart parent that I am, counted out vitamins for the boys and threw them in a plastic ziploc bag and tossed them into my cosmetic bag in the kitchen. Brandon and I have a system. I pack and take it to the door and then he gripes about how much I've packed and takes it out to the car, where he attempts to load it and I undo it and reload it into the truck. It takes a little longer- but it works!

Anyway, so I guess in the shuffle of all five us trying to run around like chickens with our heads cut off, Greyson saw the vitamins and decided to open the bag. Not only did this cute little two and a half year old open the bag, but he then proceeded to eat all 18 vitamins located inside of said bag plus the two vitamins that I had given him twenty minutes prior. Wonderful! I instantly panicked. I've heard horror stories from fellow mothers of twins club members, about having to rush their little ones to the ER after an accidental overdose. This time, I let Brandon make the wonderful call to PC. After being asked several questions in which Brandon covers the mouthpiece of the phone and says, " I think she thinks we are bad parents", that I started to worry about a DFS phone call or visit. After finding out that Greyson would be okay, but might have a slight tummy ache, we continued to run around like little chickens!

Once we were on the road and half way to Joplin, Brandon and I just started laughing. I mean seriously, who has to call Poison Control twice in one week on the same child??! Only in the Howard household would that happen. Thank goodness we made it safely through our trip and with no more PC phone calls. I am hoping and praying that's a number we don't have to dial for a LONG, LONG time!