"Mama, he's dirty."

When I was little I had to have my stomach pumped on what seemed a regular basis. The first time it happened I was two and Mom had been cleaning the cabinets in the kitchen. She walked across the room to find me sitting on the floor with an open blister pack of Contact Cold Caps. I had split apart multiple capsules and hundreds of tiny time release pellets were all over the floor. There was no telling how many capsules or pellets I had consumed. At the hospital the nurses had to strap me down to what was called a papoose board in order to keep me still enough for a tube to go up my nose and down my throat for the stomach pumping process.

The next time Mama took me to the hospital for a good stomach emptying session was after she realized I had most likely ingested an entire bottle of Cotillion, a cologne by Avon. Mom wasn't sure how much cologne I drank but the bottle was empty and I smelled lovely. Off to the hospital we went. This time I was given dose upon dose of Ipecac with no results. An orderly was told to stay in the room with us to help Ma push fluids into me until the Ipecac made me cack. At some point the orderly reached in front of me for something and I looked to Ma saying "Mama, he's dirty!" Now this young man smiled and said something along the lines of "It's ok. She's a baby." Mama however was mortified and spent days having visions of being sued by the NAACP.

Some months later I was home watching cartoons with my Daddy. Mom came home and was not happy to discover that although I was behaving, I had consumed an entire bottle of Flintstone's vitamins. Mom says she called Poison Control this time. After talking to the nurse, Ma decided there was no need to take me to the hospital for the Ipecac treatment as she had already picked up a few bottles for the medicine cabinet after our last hospital adventure.

The last epsiode Ma remembers is the time she was pregnant with Melanie (making me 4 years old) and Daddy was out of town. Mom came around the corner to discover an empty bottle of thyroid pills in my happy little hands. Mom grabbed me, the empty bottle, the Ipecac and the phone. She called Poison Control who told her to skip the Ipecac and get me to the hospital immediately. Off we went. After having the tube up the nose treatment, the ER staff sent me up to ICU for the night. Mama says I was wound up like an 8 day clock, jumping up and down in bed all night long, ripping off the monitor leads at every turn - causing the nurses to come running every time this happened. She tells me that I didn't sleep for two days.

Tuesday November 24, 2009
Devlyn wears night time pull ups because more often than not she still wets the bed at night. I understand she can't control her bladder in her sleep. And, it's not like she goes to bed thinking "What can I do to upset everyone tonight? Oh! I know! I'll wet the bed!" I don't have a problem with her nocturnal bladder control. Thank God for night time panties! What I do have a problem with is how she does or doesn't dispose of her 'used' panties. The rule is that her night time panties go in the bathroom trash can. That child puts those things anywhere EXCEPT the bathroom trash can. I find them shoved under her bed, mingled in with the girls' dirty laundry, lying on the bedroom floor, the bathroom floor even the hallway floor a time or two. She has even put her night time panties in the tub at Devon's apartment.

John and I discussed this with the counselor who recommended that we get Devlyn her very own big girl diaper pail. On Tuesday we found a small trash can with a pop up lid and brought it home for Devlyn. I explained that it was hers and that we needed her to put her night time panties in that trash can. She was very excited and proud about having her very own trash can. We demonstrated how to open and securely close the lid. Then she carried it upstairs to her bedroom for me. As we were swapping out the new trash can for the old one, I found a handful of empty Jr. Tylenol blister packs...

Sunday November 22, 2009
Shortly before dinner, someone found three empty Jr. Tylenol blister packs in Devlyn's bed. She could have gotten the packs from the bathroom cabinet, but she could not have opened them. No one fessed up to opening the packs.

Tuesday November 24, 2009
There I was in the girls' room looking through the trash and counting these opened blister packs - 4, 5, 6...10, 11, 12...22, 23, 24...30, 31, 32! I WAS FREAKING OUT! Project calm. Project calm. I called out "Abby! Come here please." I showed her my hands full of opened empty blister packs. "When did this happen?" I asked her. "I don't remember. Maybe Saturday or Sunday?" she tells me. Crap, what day is it? Tuesday. It's Tuesday. I let out a sigh of relief that no one was sick or dead. I calmly asked "Who did this?" She says "Me, Connie, Jack & Devlyn." My mind was rushing to do the math. Jesus, I hate math. OK - 4 kids. 32 pills. That means 32 divided by 4...uh...uh...uh...4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32...that means uh...uh...uh... I count by 4s on my fingers...8 tablets per kid - IF they split them up evenly. Abby seems to think she was not as responsible for the problem because Devlyn was the one who would run down to the bathroom, climb up on the sink and get down another page of pills each time they ran out of "candy".

I will never know who ate how many, but thank God, the kids are ok. We all had a big talk about how medecine is not candy and that the kids could have gotten very sick. Mom, Devon and I went to the store and picked up 2 large tackle boxes and padlocks. ALL meds have been put into the lock boxes which have been put up and away. The keys have been put out of sight in secure locations. What next?

Happy Holidays.
Amy & the gang.