In the blink of an eye...

On the iPod  "Wonderful Unknown" by: Ingrid Michaelson

So here I am staring into the video monitor looking for breaths... Luca has been asleep since 7:30 tonight, he has slept through the last three nights by some miracle, but tonight I wouldn't mind a midnight wake up call because today was one of the scariest days I have had as a parent...

Luca and Levi slept awesome last night, they both woke up in good moods and we were excited to spend some quality time with friends, who we love dearly.  I dropped the boys off at my moms and ran to an appointment.  Luca took his early nap right when I wanted him to and by the time I got back to my moms both boys were ready to go to our play date....

The play date started great... The kids were playing wonderfully together.  The moms were catching up when in the blink of an eye everything changed...

Luca turned around from a high table right next to us and in a split second I saw a Tide laundry detergent pod hanging from his lips... My heart hit the floor... I grabbed the pod so quickly from his mouth that I for sure scared the living day lights out of him. I rushed him to the kitchen sink where I tried to remove as much soap from his mouth as I could... I can not even explain to you the amount of bubbles that were spewing from his mouth. He was hysterical, I was hysterical, actually everyone was hysterical.  Well except Levi... Levi seemed to be the only one who probably was so scared by the way we were acting he just kept to himself and played quietly... Luca was visibly gagging at this point and even threw up either because the soap was so thick and tasted horrible or possibly because we were trying to clear out his mouth the best we could and gagged him with our fingers.   I decided to call 911 because he was making weird gagging gasping sounds and I was worried about his breathing. 

Within 3-4 minutes the paramedics had arrived and luca was already starting to act like a normal 8 month old. The first thing they asked for was the box the detergent came out of.  On the back of most cleaning supplies there are instructions on what to do if ingested... I actually knew this from baby first aid class but remembering when your kid is in distress is actually quite difficult.  The instructions were clear, "do not induce vomiting" " drink a full glass of water or milk and call poison control!"  They also asked to see the package of soap that he had ingested... luckily,  luca had not broken into the stain remover part of the pod which is actually more harmful but instead had just ingested the soap part.  

So I gave him a bottle and the paramedics assured me he was fine. (I ended up calling poison control and "Debbie" (the R.N. on call) and I became best buds... She even ended up calling to check on him later in the day) 

Things I've learned from today... 

It doesn't matter how careful you are there can always be accidents....

Kids are completely different... Levi never put anything in his mouth... Luca puts everything into his mouth. 

If your child ever accidentally ingests a chemical. Look on the back of the package first to see what to do.

Have the poison control number on your phone. There is no reason to not have this number on your phone! When we were growing up my mom always had a list of chemicals inside the door of the medicine cabinet with the poison control number on it! Maybe things were easier in the 70s when we used paper! 

Update:  It has been a couple of days and luckily my sweet baby is completely fine. Still sleeping through the night... And I have calmed down to watching him breathe only a couple of times at night :). We feel extremely lucky! 

On the blog tomorrow school lunches.... And recipes! 

xoxo chef a