Happy Father's Day!

Carter -- Don't look at this blog post until after Father's Day!  :)

Alphabet Blocks Father's Day 5x7 folded card

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Hello? Poison Control?

Oh what a night. 

We were straightening up the house getting ready for bed when Annabelle decided she needed to try Excedrin.  I caught her in the bathroom with a bottle open in her hand with chalky white stuff in her mouth and on her hands.  My first thought was how in the world could she open a child-proof bottle?  It was an old bottle and I had no idea how many had been in there to begin with.  It is never fun to call Poison Control, but I panicked because Excedrin has both acetaminophen and aspirin in it (not to mention caffeine!).  All I could think of was that my dad never let us take aspirin because it could cause Reye's Syndrome.  Since we had no idea how many she had actually ingested, they suggested we take her to the ER. 

I grabbed the diaper bag and headed out the door with her.  We got there about 8:00... right at her bedtime.  They actually got us in quicker than I imagined when I saw how full the waiting room was.  The nurses and doctors were FABULOUS with us.  We've been to the ER before with her for spiking high fevers because of ear infections, but this ended up being our longest visit so far.  The doctor explained to me that they would have to draw blood twice to measure that the aspirin and acetaminophen levels were dropping over a 4-hour timespan.  In order to only have one needle stick, they actually decided to do an IV on her to do both blood draws.  THAT was a fun experience.  It was hard for me to hear her scream that loud but she really did great, all things considered.  The part she hated the most (after the needle!) was having her arm splinted so she wouldn't bend her elbow or pull out the IV.  She kept saying "Arm... Out... Arm... Out".

They brought us a rolling TV cart with a DVD player attached and a stack of Sesame Street videos.  That was all Annabelle needed to be happy.  :)  She loves Elmo, and can name all of the characters on Sesame Street (except Grover... still working on him!)  which I think I mentioned in a previous post.  We got a warm blanket and they also brought her some juice and we just hung out in the hospital bed together watching Elmo.  She finally fell asleep at about 11:10 (hello... caffeine!).  They came in to do the second blood draw at 11:45 and of course, that woke her up... but it wasn't nearly as bad as the first one.  The results finally came back about 12:30 and the levels were both well within the "safe" range.  They said as long as the acetaminophen levels were under 40 we could go home... her level was 2.5.  Whew.

We got home and she had trouble getting back to sleep.  She wanted to be held constantly.  Every time I tried to lay her down she woke up screaming.  At one point I was humming our lullabye that we always sing and she put her hand over my mouth and shushed me.  I wonder how long she's wanted to do that???  It made me laugh, but as soon as I quit singing she fell asleep.  Thanks for the vote of confidence in mom's singing voice, babe.  I asked Carter to help me and he had the same thing happen, so she ended up sleeping with us.  I crashed.  It had been a really long day.

This morning at 6:30 Carter's cell phone rang and I was sure it was my mom calling to check on her... but it was her daycare calling to say they didn't have any water and wouldn't be opening until later in the day.  I usually leave with her by 7:00 to drop her off and get to work, but we were both grateful to sleep late this morning. 

The story ended with me waking up with a headache and... taking Excedrin to get rid of it.  :)  Poetic ending.