Poison

The other night as I was doing dishes, I opened the dishwasher in order to put some dirty things in. I turned to grab them, rinsed them off, then turned just in time to see the Dude sticking his fingers in the soap that was left from the prior load, into his mouth and rubbing it all over his face.

This caused instant panic. Soap is toxic, right? Right??

I picked up the phone and called my mother to see what kind of soap it was. She did not pick up. I texted her, shaking. I couldn't think about anything but the Dude. Finally I got a hold of her and she told me that she had no idea what kind of soap it was but that I should call Kaiser.

I called the Kaiser advice nurse and she told me that I should call poison control. So I did that.

All the while the Dude was giggling and drinking his milk and acting completely normal. He climbed on my lap and asked to watch Sesame Street and very seriously pointed out to me when Elmo came on.

I spoke to Darren at poison control who laughed and assured me that this happens all the time.

Side note, WTF. This happens all the time??? What do you mean this happens all the time. How can that be, that toddlers eat soap? Toddlers eat soap. What the hell.

Darren said to watch him and that I should feed him as much liquid as he possibly can drink, and whatever his favorite drink is that's what he gets to drink as much of it as he wants all night long. I should to watch for burns around his mouth and for excessive drooling. I asked him how the hell I was supposed to know what excessive drooling was with a teething toddler and he laughed and said, "you'll know."

I made chocolate milk. The Dude loves chocolate milk, as most toddlers do. It's his special treat whenever we go to Target -- we go to Starbucks and I get a iced-tea and he gets a chocolate milk.

Later, we were back in the kitchen so I could finish the dishes. I turned my back on him for exactly seven seconds when he suddenly said, "oh! Casey!" ...And then a moment later Casey came running in.

Now in our house when ever we spell anything the first thing we do is call Casey or Bella. I knew that something had been spilled because he knew to call Casey, so I turned around to find that he had dumped the entire sippy cup – who knows how he got in the lid off – onto the floor. Now, anyone who knows anything about dogs knows that chocolate is fatal to dogs so my best mommy voice I yelled at Casey to STOP.

This caused the previously scampering puppy to skitter to a halt, turn tail, and race back in the opposite direction. This has never happened before with Casey for he is a pig dog who would prefer to eat than do anything else. I guess that voice was effective. I'll have to remember that.

So now I had a toddler who had ingested poison, chocolate all over the floor, and dogs who might come in at any moment. I ended up cleaning up the floor. Everyone was fine except for me, who was a bundle of nerves.

At that point, all I wanted was to go in my room and shut my door. Maybe with a large glass of hard alcohol.

And it was only 5:58 PM.