You Wanted Excitement...

After an enjoyable, albeit very routine road trip, we didn't do much around the house except for unload the car, unpack all my precious Trader Joe perishables, and get caught up on vacation laundry. It was some time late last night before I decided to put away all the T.J. dry goods too...and that's when I discovered it. A brand-new bottle of children's vitamins with an opened childproof lid and only 74 out of 100 vitamins left. Apparently, Caroline thought they were candy and ate them hand over fist for most of the drive home. I have already called poison control three times in my mothering career, so I made Dave do the honors this time. (No, it wasn't my favorite guy "Windy" who answered the phone this time. But I did talk to him for two of my three previous calls. You just don't forget it when you are freaking out and a man says "This is Windy, what I can help you with tonight, Ma'am.") Thank God for the fact that Trader Joe's doesn't put iron in their children's chewables. Thank God! Thank God! Thank God! She didn't have as much as an upset stomach last night. I wish I could say the same. Needless to say, I didn't sleep much last night. Interestingly enough, Caroline was the reason for our last poison control call as well. Only that time she had found my Chromium Picolinate tablets. What is it with her and vitamins?! So far, we've had to call at least once with each kid except for Elisa. Part of me wants to say "And maybe it won't happen!" But it's me-OF COURSE it will...

That was last night's adventure, today's was almost as much fun. My gas light went off as I pulled into the office parking lot. At lunch time, I realized that my purse was still sitting on the dining room table at home instead of in my back pack where I thought it was. I forgot I was low on gas until the light went off again in Moore (about 10 miles from where I needed to be). I shut off the a/c because I still had 6 kids to pick up at school (3 of mine, 3 from the car pool) and I not only had to make it there, but also to the house where 3 of them needed to be dropped off. I begged the car not to die on my for the next 20 minutes and only dared breathe again when I coasted into the Wal-Mart parking lot with three of my four kids (I left the little one at pre-school, why should she sit in a hot car with the rest of us?) and waited 45 minutes for Dave to show up with his Debit card. I felt like an idiot. My Dad seems to think of running out of gas as some kind of Olympic competition with points awarded for where and how you do it. (My favorite was a Kentucky highway on the way to Mammoth Caves one year-it was about 3 a.m., we were in the middle of NOWHERE, and he had to use a Coke cup because he never travels with a gas can. On our family vacation, it was never a question of IF we would run out, just when it would happen.) On the other hand, I hope it never happens to me for real. Those were the longest 25 minutes of my life, and I paid for my error in judgement by having to spend 45 minutes in Wal-Mart with my children. And THAT was punishment enough.

And on a completely unrelated note, saying things like "my kids will never..." is just asking for trouble. I may not agree with her politically, but I would warn those pointing fingers at Governor Palin and her parenting skills might want to take a closer look in their own backyards. It's been my experience that the quickest way to guarantee yourself some troubles on the parenting front is to question the abilities of another parent. And that's all I've got to say about that. (For now...)