Must have been the Full Moon

To tell the poison control story (most definitely the juiciest part of this story) I need to go back a few days...

Ty picked up a head cold from Pre-K about a week ago. His nose has leaked like a faucet this past week and he has been spreading snot all over the place. Instead of using a tissue, or even his clothes for that matter, he would use his hands to wipe the snot out of his nose, which in reality just spread it to neighboring parts of his face. I would pick him up from school and his face would be so dirty and WT that I might as well have been letting him walk barefoot in nothing but a diaper through Wal Mart. The teachers have done a good job helping him with his snot issue, but there's only so much you can do for a boy that refuses to use a tissue. We are civilized but he is stubborn...two qualities that don't seem to be mixing well here.

Ty's snot was soon accompanied by a nasty cough, so we purchased a kid-friendly cough medicine for him under the guise of helping his discomfort of having a cold, but actually it was to mask his nasty cold from the facility so that they would not send him home. (Not really, but it did cross my mind.) We would give Ty a dose of the medicine right before leaving for school and then another before going to bed and it seemed to be helping. We have been dosing him up for the last week so the medicine routine has set in.

Now throw in Katie, the sibling who catches whatever ailment the other sibling has brought home from school. (Danny got it too, but not the Public School Teacher Mom. This Super Hero has become immune to germs because she teaches a few children that were once WT barefoot, diaper-wearing babies in Wal Mart and has built up a immunity!) Katie just recently started to show symptoms of the cough but did not posses the same snot producing strain as Ty had. Well, last night Katie woke up 3 times crying and in obvious pain. Our children have always been good sleepers, so when they aren't good sleepers, it has ALWAYS, I mean ALWAYS, meant they are sick. Makes it easy for us, so I followed the signs and took her to the doctor this morning and yep, sure enough, an ear infection. I think I'm being punished for secretly coveting the recent coupon for a $25 gift card from CVS for any "new or transferred prescription". (But the amoxicillin did help me get some cool free stuff to share with "Santa" from the 75% summer clearance section!) After coming back from the pediatrician/CVS trip, I quickly got a dose of Katie's medicine in her to start the healing cycle. Basically, between Ty, Katie and the dog, my life has been filled with smeared snot, medicine dosing and poop.

If you're still with the story, I am about to get to the Poison Control part....

Today around 1:30 was nap time, I was changing Katie's diaper and Ty was in the bathroom alone with the door closed. It's very normal for him to close the door while he is in there but I needed to throw away the diaper so I quickly knocked and opened the door and that's when the s**t hit the fan. I scared him and found him fumbling to get something back on the counter before I would noticed. Much to my surprise I realized the item was an open medicine bottle with foamy bubbles at the opening with zero medicine in the bottom. Ty was able to open the cough medicine bottle and proceeded to drink the entire amount left in the bottle. I yelled for Danny to tell me how much was left in the bottle because Danny was the last to dose from it. He couldn't remember exactly but we both decided it was close to being empty so Ty might have swigged 2-3 teaspoons worth of medicine. 1 tsp is his dose size and this is the type of medicine that killed a few children a few years ago because the parents unintentionally overdosed them. Arrrrrggggggg, what is happening? Who left the top so unsecured? What do we do? So many questions were going through our heads.

He seemed fine...no bubbles at the mouth, convulsions, massive hair loss, etc. Danny didn't want to let him sleep in case he did show a reaction and Ty was thrilled he was getting to stay up and watch TV instead of taking a nap. I went downstairs and found our pediatrician's little guide they give out with newborns. There was a little section about calling Poison Control for overdoses, so that's what I did. It was really quite a pleasant conversation, actually, with underlying fear on my part, unsure if the result of this pleasant conversation was going to be a trip to the emergency room. Nurse Gabrielle asked me to tell her the medicine name and then read the active ingredients and amounts of each. She then asked for Ty's weight and using HER superpowers (aka computer) decided that the amount he ingested was not a concern due to his weight and overall good health. YEAH!!! She said he could take a nap (thank goodness because Ty is a bear without a nap) and that he did...a 3 hour nap. And that was the only side effect from taking 2-3 doses of nighttime cough medicine in one sitting. Except for the spat Danny and I got into relating to how Ty was able to actually get to the medicine.....