Lesson well learned

Thursday morning we had a huge scare in our house.  It was a moment that I'll never forget and a moment that I felt like a horrible mother.

Garrison, Josiah and myself were in our bed watching "The Dukes of Hazzard" when I needed to go lay Josiah down for a nap.  When I left the room Garrison was laying on Thomas' side of the bed.

Now most of you know that I take an anti-depressant and lately I'd had been lazy and just leaving the bottle next to my side of the bed on my table.

I went and tried to lay Josiah down for a nap, but he was fighting me to go to sleep.  So after a few minutes I decided that I needed to go check on Garrison to make sure he was still ok.

When I walked into our bedroom Garrison was no longer on Thomas' side of the bed, but on my side.  In one hand he had the bottle of anti-depressants and in the other hand he was holding the lid.  He started shaking the bottle and that's when I realized that I couldn't hear the sounds of pills in the bottle. 

I ran over to him and noticed right away he had powder on his face.  I began asking him if he had eaten the pills and he smiled and shook his head yes.  I asked him a few more times, making sure he understood what I meant and of course getting more and more panicky. 

I immediately ran downstairs, grabbed my phone and called Thomas.  I tried to not sound hysterical and explained to Thomas what had happened.  He told me I needed to go wash out Garrison's mouth.  As I was talking to Thomas I found three pills in our bed.

After I hung up the phone I went and rinsed Garrison's mouth and brushed his teeth.  I'm pretty sure Garrison understood how important it was to listen to me because he did everything I asked him to do without any fussing.  I then tried figuring out how many pills were actually in the bottle and I figured I must have had 4 or 6 pills.  So he either ate 1 or 3 pills.

I then started calling different places trying to figure out what I needed to do.  I started with my doctor.  They told me that I needed to either call his peditrician or the poison control center.  I called his peditrician and they told me that his doctor wouldn't be in until Monday and that I could talk to the on call doctor, but that they weren't sure how long it would take to get back to me.  Forget that!  So I called the poison control center and they put a pharmacist on the line and she told me that it was ok if he ate up to three pills.  That the pills I take are pretty safe and three is an okay amount for a toddler.  I just needed to know that he might complain of headaches, stomach aches and that he might become super sleepy, but that I didn't need to take him and get his levels checked.

I felt like the worse mom ever.  I was mad at myself for being so irresponsible and leaving my pills on the side of my bed.

Garrison ended up being completely fine.  He actually didn't get any of the side effects they thought he might.  In fact, he normally is a really good napper and that day he was a horrible napper.  I don't know if that had anything to do with the pills, but he only slept for a hour, if that. 

I learned a really good lesson that day.  One that I will never forget.  It scared the living daylights out of me, but Garrison ended up being completely fine and Thomas wasn't even that mad at me either.  I think he understood that the thought of what could happen was enough to make us rethink EVERYTHING we do.