Harmful If Swallowed

I realized that it's been a while since I featured Georgia in a story on here.  I do have one, but I was keeping it to myself, because, well I feel as though I may be looking like a bad mother, lately. What with one child saying the F word and then losing the other one for a bit.  I feared Social Services might end up on my door step, but eh, F it.  I'll tell you anyway.  I mean it's not THAT bad I had to call poison control, is it?  

Okay, let me start by telling you that Georgia puts EVERYTHING in her mouth.  I never really had this problem with Sonya or Lana.  Sonya went through that phase for a while, but it was never really a big deal.  Plus she was the oldest, so there weren't smaller toys lingering around for her to discover and ingest.  I don't think Lana ever put anything in her mouth ever.  This may also explain why she doesn't eat much.  Georgia is an entirely different story.  Anything on the floor or within Georgia's reach is fair game.  Shoes, cat food, food fallen on the floor from breakfast, lunch or dinner, crayons, paper, magazines, and LOTS of little toys.  This makes it very difficult when you've got two older kids who want to play Legos.  I'm sure you all remember Legos, but do have any idea how small those pieces are??  Just the right size for 14 month old to taste and swallow!  Also, Lana is obsessed with coins right now, so at any given time there is about twenty dollars in change strewn throughout my house.  Just the perfect size for Georgia to choke on or choke down.  Luckily, up to this point, I've managed to keep her from actually swallowing any of these things, even though every day I'm taking something out of her mouth.  Many times a day.  I do keep a lock on my cabinet under the sink where dish washing detergent and things like that are kept.  I'm pretty sure if that were open to her she'd knock back a bottle of 409 in less than a minute.  Therefore,  I should have known better to keep a jar of diaper rash cream on the floor.  Or at least you would think I would have known better.

In my defense it wasn't really on the floor for long.  I had changed Lana's diaper there, because she'd rather sit in poop all day than change her diaper on that horrid changing table, so I end up on the floor.   She had a really bad diaper rash and I used some of the cream on her.  After I changed her, I closed the lid on the cream, but apparently not all the way.  Georgia was in the room playing and I left to get rid of the diaper.  I was gone less than two minutes when Sonya walked in her room and yelled,

"Uh mom!  I don't think this is something Georgia should be eating!!"

I ran in to her bedroom to find G sitting on the floor with her hands up in the air COVERED in Triple Paste diaper rash cream.  Then I noticed she had some around her mouth.  I opened her mouth to see a bit of paste on the roof.  I picked her up and took her to the kitchen sink to wipe and wash her hands.  For those of you who have never used or heard of Triple Paste, let me assure you that it is indeed paste.  It took a ton of wiping and a tub of soap to get it all off, all the while she was squirming and screaming.  I mean after all, I had taken her fun AND her snack away.  Mean, mean mommy!

After she was cleaned up, I retrieved the jar of cream from the floor and read the part where it said, "do not ingest" (duh), then, "call for medical help or poison control if ingested".  Crap.   Did I really feel like taking three kids into the ER for a little diaper rash cream?  I mean she didn't eat that much did she?  What's the worst that could happen?  FINE!  I  guess I WOULD feel terrible if something bad happened to her.  I had to do it, I called Poison Control.  

I talked to a really nice guy, who was not at all judgemental, and very helpful.   He informed me that diaper rash cream, at least this particular one, wasn't  a big deal.  It's more of a choking hazard, because it's so thick.  She didn't have that problem though, since it had apparently made it past her esophagus fine.  He informed me that she may have vomiting if she did eat a lot, but not to induce vomiting. It may also cause some diarrhea.  Well, at least if she did poop it out, it would help her butt from becoming rashy!  Turns out none of those things happened, so I don't really think she did much more than taste it.  It's a good thing I got there when I did though, otherwise she would have crawled all over the house with "paste" hands.  THAT would have been fun to clean up.  

Even though I will try to be more careful with where I put things in the future, I can't be sure she won't try to eat something like that again.  So I'm thinking of having her fitted for a muzzle. This way I don't really have to watch her at all!  Okay, NOW Social Services will be showing up on my doorstep.