When Poison Control Has Your Number

Today is Keeping it Real day, a day to make everyone else feel good about their parenting.

It started with a daffodil. Not that I had never called poison control before, mind you. I had done the typical "help my child is covered in expired Nyquil and I don't know how much he drank because he only just learned how to drink from a cup" (syrup of ipecac) and the "I know the packet of silicone that came in his box of new shoes says it's non-toxic, but is he really going to be ok after eating it all?" (yep). And I joked that they probably had my file tagged. This was different. Because this was the Cuddle Bear.

It started with a daffodil. I was driving Peanut to preschool, and she had picked flowers for her teachers. Hearing Peanut wail hysterically was nothing new, and we were about to pull into the parking lot, so I didn't think much of it. When I got out to let out the girls, Peanut is in hysterics screaming a mostly unintelligible "she ATE it! Cuddle Bear ATE Mrs. Teacher's flower!" I look down at the Cuddle Bear, and she is suspiciously silent. I say, open your mouth. She complies. Her mouth is full of mostly masticated yellow. We enter preschool, where all the good parents say, "aren't daffodils toxic?" I have no idea. Hello, Poison Control. And yes, they are. But she hadn't finished her snack, so they said to give her a juice box and send her on her merry flower-eating way.

Two days later, I blearily open my old person pill box container (which I bought because I am so tired all the time that I have no idea whether or not I took it's contents without proof), and it is empty. Enter another call to Poison Control to find out what Synthroid and Yaz do to a puny skinny-heinered 2-year-old.

Less than a week after THAT, a friend was watching the Cuddle Bear for me, and while they were playing outside the Cuddle Bear ate some type of ornamental fruit she found on the ground (WHY?!?! WHY!?!?!). Knowing my daughter's consumption history and being a good parent herself (one of children who would never eat ornamental fruit), she called, you guessed it, Poison Control.

A week later I get a phone call. From Poison Control. Wondering if my child is ok. Is there anything they can do to help me?

Oh, and those pills? Never ate them. I had forgotten to fill the box that week. I had been taking imaginary pills for two mornings in a row.