Child Labor

Having read posts about it on several of the Mommy blogs that I visit regularly, I decided to use my Clean House, Clean Planet book to make several kid-friendly cleaners and put the kids to work in the bathroom cleaning. I did the sink area and the toilet. The kids did the bathtub.


It was way too gross in there for me to clean it myself. Fortunately, the kids just thought it was cool to sling baking soda around and use the scrub brushes. When I gave Julia her squirt bottle of club soda, she was thrilled. Once Dax figured out how to get the twisty lid off his baking soda shaker so he could dump the baking soda in his lap, he was thrilled. They both had a ball and my tub got clean!

And then I let them out ...

And Dax found my allergy medication ...

And opened the child-proof cap ...

And shook the pills all over the floor ...

And Julia said, "Candy, Mommy!" ...

And ate a few pills ...

And I yelled ...

And she spit some out ...

And I called Poison Control ...

And was told to get her to the ER ...

And so we went ...

And Dave met us there ...

And took Dax home ...

And Julia and I sat ...

And sat ...

And sat ...

And after four hours we went home, too.



Basically since I couldn't tell how much she had swallowed, the woman from Poison Control said Julia needed to monitored at the hospital since an overdose of the medicine could cause irregular heart rhythms. Fortunately, the symptoms, if they occur, happen in the first four hours of ingesting the medicine so we didn't have to stay overnight. Unfortunately, it happened right before I got lunch together for the kids. So, Julia and I feasted on a meal of vending machine treats while she overdosed on television viewing. She only got poked once when the nurse pricked her finger to get blood for a potassium test. Otherwise, she was quite happy to let the blood pressure machine give her arm a "hug" every hour and did pretty good holding the thermometer under her tongue. She's still wearing her "bracelet" ID from the hospital and I'm not sure when we'll get her to let us take it off. To her, the afternoon was nothing but fun. Me? I've got to go finish cleaning the bathroom.