Yes, I'm THAT mom

Recently, while he was sitting in my lap and I was chatting away happily with my parents on Skpye but apparently not paying enough attention to him, Baby E bit into a glowstick bracelet. And then he started yelling. Really loudly. And crying. Just as loud. I turned to him, saw the bracelet, and said "Is this broken?" at which point I touched it and put my finger in my mouth. And my mouth caught on FIRE. I signed off and immediately Googled "infant ingestion of glow stick" and followed the instructions given:

--wash out mouth with wet wash cloth
--give child liquids, preferably milk or water
--ignore glowing mouth
--call poison control because some people are allergic to the glowing fluid

Check, check, check....really? Poison control again?! For those of you keeping score, this is now the THIRD time I have had to call for Baby E. I really didn't want to but I felt compelled to do the responsible thing, so I did. This time, they didn't even ask me my last name or address or anything...because that information is already. On. File. Oh, fabulous. How convenient. That makes three poison calls and one case of salmonella, all logged in the county's system. Wait, is that Child Protective Services knocking at my door? Better go clean the kitchen, no?

Less than 24 hours later, J and I were at the computer looking at pictures of menorahs (the word had come up in a book we were reading and, since it was a very funny book, J thought "lighting the menorah" was just some funny, made up phrase, and his uproarious laughter every time we got to that part was striking me as disrespectful, blasphemous even, so we were learning what a menorah was). Baby E was at the table just behind us, eating popcorn, something he has done numerous times already with absolutely no problems. He routinely chokes on tortilla chips but popcorn? No big deal.

However, suddenly he started snuffling oddly, and, when I looked at him, his eyes were watering and there were strange red marks on his upper lip. As I stared at him, trying to imagine what was making him react in this way, it slowly dawned on me that he had had the last of the popcorn...and I was pretty sure there were quite a few more unpopped kernels in his bowl when I gave it to him. I picked one up with a sickening thought and said to him "E, did you put one of these up your nose?" He smiled, said "Uh huh," and grabbed it out of my fingers and tried to put it up his nostril with practiced ease. GREAT!

A few minutes later, a kernel mysteriously appeared in that same nostril. Yay! Then another. And another. Oh, crap! Eventually, he snorted out a total of four. When I called him in a panic, practically out the door on my way to the hospital, the husband said we didn't need to worry unless one got into his lungs and got infected...a possibility I hadn't even considered. Thank you!

This kid will be the death of me! It doesn't matter if you have him on your lap, for crying out loud!