28-2-2010 - Irritated!

My mood while writing this blog: panties in a twist

Many of know I have an extremely active and curious child that gets into EVERYTHING! I’m not joking when I say- Benjamin could pay for his college tuition by being a child safety product tester, if he can’t figure it out it’s guaranteed to work! I can’t begin to guess how many rounds of child proofing we went through. Imagine Benjamin as Curious George, now hit the fast forward button and throw in a velociraptor… that’s the best description I can give!

This morning I was taking care of Hayden, glanced over towards the kitchen to discover Benjamin pulled a bar stool over to a cabinet, climbed up onto the counter, reached high up into one of the cabinets, twisted off a secure child safety lid and was drinking a ½ fl oz bottle of Motrin Infant drops. I quickly put Hayden down and ran over to Benjamin but by the time I reached him he’d already drank what was left in the bottle. My neighbor and mother of Benjamin’s best friend (aka girlfriend) had the exact same thing happen to her child a few months prior to our ordeal, I quickly called her. She informed me that poison control told her that at their age it’s not harmful since it’s a low dosage but to just keep an eye on their behavior. It got me thinking, if two children have drank child medicine I wonder how common of a thing it really is…so of course I turned to my wonderful friend “Google”. I stumbled upon a question asked by a mother ( http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080308135148AAa7H3P ) and I must say the responses she received “twisted my panties”! Someone actually suggested inducing vomiting which is a HUGE NO NO without a medical professionals okay, it can cause more harm.

Here are a few of the comments this poor frightened mother received.

“Induce vomiting. If you don't have anything to induce it then stick your finger down his/her throat. Then call the poison control center and do what they say, which may include going to the doctor/hospital or maybe just flushing his/her system out with extra water.”

“why would you have it where your child could reach mine is in the cabinet way at the top . way out of the reach even if they got on the counter which never happens cause i watch my kids”

“Way to go mom of the year”

“WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THIS....”

“how lame can you be, get her some real help, not here, wow the things i read in here.”

“Wow-sure hope this is just a bogus question to get us simple COMMON SENSE folk uptight.....I'm pretty certain that Yahoo Answers would be the LAST place I would go in the event of a possible emergency...but that's just me....COMMON SENSE folk!”

I don’t care how closely you watch your children; incidents like this are unregrettably going to happen. If you're approached by someone freaking out asking what to do or for help, don’t act like you’re the mother of the year and give a smart ass condescending answer!