Last night I went with my kids, and my daughter’s family, trick-or-treating. Her cute two-year-old was dressed as a gorilla (he’s big for his age, what can I say?).
As we were leaving, walking through the darkness, he said “Nana,” and pointed to his mouth. I put my hand to his chin and felt “wet.” I said, “What is that?” and he held up his glow-stick.
Well, I couldn’t see any immediate damage to the glow-stick, so I just wiped the spit from his chin (which I do alot – I’m very familiar with spit and snot), and grabbed his hand to pull him along.
And that’s when I saw it:
My hand was glowing yellow!
Uh-oh, I thought.
I took another look at the little bugger, and saw that he had luminous yellow spots on various parts of him.
“Open your mouth,” I commanded. A part of his gum-line glowed yellow.
Uh-oh again.
My daughter deftly dialed Poison Control and described our situation to the nurse on-call at Parkland Hospital. When the nurse asked her why she thought the toddler had swallowed some of the glow-stick innards, she answered, “Because my mom made him open his mouth and he was glowing.”
Well, you know you’ve got a live-wire on your hands when your situation makes an experienced nurse working at the preeminent trauma hospital in the city start laughing. But she quickly recovered, apologizing for the chuckles, and proceeded to tell my daughter that a small amount shouldn’t hurt him.
(But what in the hell is that stuff anyway?)
So even though my daughter doesn’t actually have Poison Control on speed dial, she probably should (it wasn’t the first time she’d called – for the same kid).
What can I say? Halloween with kids is a trip!
