Well, I got my first real scare as a mom yesterday, thanks to Ellie. I promised to help out a friend who is out of town, by coming over to her house and watering plants, feeding the fish and getting mail. She also wanted me to check on her garden. So I walked the girls over in the stroller and parked them in the back yard. Their backyard has a lot of bugs and the girls got really eaten up when we went earlier in the week. So I decided to spray both of them and myself with bug spray before I went to check out the garden. I let Ellie out of the stroller show she could run around and Annie sat contentedly in the stroller. As I was inspecting the garden,* I hear this spray and look back and see Annie's face all red, her eyes scrunched close tight and she's screaming bloody murder!!! Ellie was holding the bug spray.
I couldn't believe it!!! I spent the next 30 minutes administering first aid to Annie - including giving her bottle (in case any of the spray got into her mouth) and holding her eyes under running water for 15 minutes (not an easy task for anyone let alone a sad 8-month-old). I was surprised at how calmly she took it. I didn't have time to discipline Ellie because I was so focused on making sure Annie was ok. Thankfully, when I called the emergency number on the spray bottle, the nice man I talked to assured me that nothing in the spray would cause eye damage, it would only irritate her. Thank goodness, I was sure I was going to be caring for a vision impaired daughter for the rest of my life!
It was a struggle to discipline Ellie when I finally had the time to, because she didn't even realize that what she had done was wrong. She just thought that I had forgot to spray Annie's face. She didn't know it was bad. She knows it's bad now. And we talked at length about how we do not spray anything into anyone's face. Hopefully some of it stuck with her. Who knows?
I was so emotionally drained by the end of the whole ordeal, it took all of my strength to walk back home. I didn't even make dinner. Ellie opted for leftover mac n cheese. I don't recall what I ate - except I know I downed a cold one (Sprite, that is.) I was very grateful that Matt was able to get home before bedtime so he could help put the girls to bed. And he didn't even complain about having to scrounge around for his dinner - I think he ended up with leftover fajitas from Monday.
I just hope I don't have to poison control for a real long time.
*I don't know what I was looking for. I don't have the slightest idea how to tell if plants are healthy or if veggies are ripe or whatever. I can't even do it in the grocery store.
8 comments:
As I just finished reading this, I too heard that blood curling scream. Only the cause of Emilie's was a damslefly landing on her (she thought it was a spider).
I am so glad that you were able to 'save' Annie! That must have scared you to death. I hope that you don't have any more encounters of this kind!
At my last doctor's appointment for Charlotte, the pediatrician gave me poison control stickers to put all over my house. He said that almost every parent he knew had to call at some point. It made me feel a little better about the time that Barrett ate stainless steel cleaner. I'm glad that Annie survived the ordeal!!
That is scary. I hate when the kids get anything in their eyes. We've had a couple of miserable times with sunscreen and sand but not bug spray thank goodness. Poor Ann. That will be a good story for both their baby books.
Oh my word. I am so glad to hear she is okay!
I am actually taking a First Aid course tomorrow (took a CPR course a few weekends ago), but nothing can truly prepare you for a situation that comes out of the blue like that! At least you were level-headed!
I've called Poison Control in a panic a number of times & I was really impressed with how nice, helpful and thorough they were. Were they that way for you? Maybe that helped ease the trauma a little bit? I'm glad Annie's ok!
Hi, Shelly. This is Jenny (Bills) Panameno. I found your blog from Emily's blog. How are you? Sorry to hear about the bug spray in poor Ann's eyes. I think something like that happens to all of us (more than once) as parents. I'm glad that Ann is okay. They are beautiful girls!
It's fun to see a little about how you are doing! I have a blog too: www.panamenos.blogspot.com Jenny :)
Scary. I'm glad to hear all was OK in the end.
I think I've called poison control 3 times between Jared and Emily. The best was when I caught Emily with an unknown red berry in her mouth outside our apartment. I called the manager to see if he could help me identify the plant and he told me to give her some Benadryl and she'd probably be fine.
I can only imagine Ellie's emotions of the day too.. going from feeling helpful and responsible by covering her sister with bug spray to worrying about her as your panic and her crying were obvious. It was good that you waited until after the ordeal to explain never spraying anything in people's faces.
I'm glad all worked out well. Good job, mom. And, I think this is a further small indicator of the personality of your oldest girl. She likes to serve. Maybe you can give her some washclothes to fold to fill that desire for now ;-)
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