Turn Your Back for Two Seconds and...

Now that I have a mobile child, I'm sure I will be using that phrase a lot. But on Wednesday night, we had our first taste of Brylee getting into something she wasn't supposed to.

Bryan had a late meeting followed by a company dinner, so he was not home all night. I had worked that day, and the late afternoon and evening seemed to be a comedy of errors. Just one little thing after another kept happening to make my night very unproductive, the house a mess, the kitchen filthy, and Brylee all over the place when I only had one set of hands to keep everything under control.

The crazy evening was capped off after I had finished giving Brylee a bath. She is getting very squirmy, and would not let me get a diaper on her while we were putting PJs on in the living room. At night, I use some zinc oxide cream on her little hiney just as a protective barrier since she, well, sits in "it" all night. We have a tub of it, and while the lid was off and I was chasing her down to get her diaper on, I turned back around to find my dog had eaten a good amount of the cream and had it all over her face and ears. I gave Paisley a quick scolding, wiped her off, and back to trying to get this baby ready for bed. About 20 minutes later, the dog vomits a big pile of food she had just eaten. Great...

At first, no big deal.  I shoe the dog outside, clean up the mess, Brylee is still playing with some books about 20 feet away in the living room. The dog stays outside for about 15 minutes, and is now whining to come back in. I assume she has thrown up all she has in her, so I let her in. We had the windows open from the cool evenings prior, but after running around all evening, I was getting hot so decided to turn the AC back on and needed to close all the windows.  After doing so in the front and living room, I walked back to our bedroom to close a single window.  This took me all of 20 seconds...literally...

And when I walked back into the living room, the dog was looking at me like "I didn't do it," and Brylee was looking at me like "Look what I found!" as she held two big fist-fulls of dog vomit and had some smeared on her, ahem, mouth.  I was mortified!!

Apparently, the dog had thrown-up again, and Brylee had crawled over to it, in a matter of seconds when I left the room. I quickly grabbed the baby, kicked the dog back outside, left the pile on the floor for a later time, and headed to the sink to wash this kid off. After my original shock, I realized she didn't really have a mouth full, but I think she probably got a good taste. I calmed down, realized it was gross but wasn't going to freak out, until we were walking down the hallway to her bedroom to put her to bed when Brylee spits up! What it the world was going on! I had throw-up all over my house now!

I looked on the box of some other brand of diaper rash cream with zinc oxide, which said "If ingested, seek medical help or call your physician." So although I didn't think it was really that big of deal, I decided I would rather be safe than sorry and called Poison Control. Hopefully that is the first and last time I ever have to call that number! The man on the phone was very nice, laughed at me a bit, and asked if I was calling for my baby or the dog. Although I love my dog, I could care less about her at that moment and was just making sure my daughter had not ingested anything toxic.  He assured me the worst thing from ingesting zinc oxide is an upset stomach with nausea and vomiting, which my dog obviously had. He said the only thing he would be concerned about was the bacteria in the dog vomit, so wash her hands and face well, or give her a bath, and then give her something to drink.

I hung up and felt better.  Brylee was still in a great mood and getting sleepy.  I gave her a bottle and we read a few more books and I put her to bed.  When I walked back in the living room, I realized I still had a pile of dog vomit on the floor, which now had seeped into the carpet....great. Paisley came back inside and quickly went and laid down in her bed for the rest of the night with an upset stomach.  Luckily there was no more vomiting.

Now that it is all said and done, I wish I had a picture to capture the expression on Brylee's face when I walked back into the room as she was sitting in front of a pile of dog vomit, two big fist-fulls, with the biggest grin on her face. The joy of a child is so precious and innocent! I love her!