Just when you thought it was safe…

I just stopped reading an email from my Auntie Hane about Cow Cow and I remembered that my story needed telling too. (Great Cow Cow adventure by the way.)

Yesterday was day number 4 of painting in Abby’s room.
We’re gonna do a real cute white base, with very light pink above a thick chair rail for relief, it is gonna be great…but I digress.

Abby, coerced us into buying her very own tiny paint roller (a little pink touch up roller), and she and I were all set to paint together. The potential for drips and paint on her clothes and hair notwithstanding.

I set her up with the ground rules.
* Don’t touch the electrical outlet (exposed – but she has a healthy fear of those so I am sure she will need some kind of acclimatization therapy once she is old enough to plug stuff in)
* Don’t paint anything but the wall
* If you drip, just tell me, we can clean it up.
* Roll it like this and that’s it.

Okay, I am just gonna run downstairs and grab MY roller and pan and I will right back. Okay?

Okay.

I quickly exit and pass Ang in the hall.

You are just gonna let her paint in there by herself?

[I scoff] She’ll be fine.

Quickly, and confidently yet still not underestimating the power of a 4 year old to find “another way” I grab my possibles, jaunt back upstairs, and down the hall with a saunter, THAT was fast.

As I turn the corner into her room, Ang right behind, I begin with

How we doin…

Abby, turns with a look and a desperately teary eye that says

“I-know-I’m-in-trouble-for-this-but
maybe-he-will-think-it’s-funny-but-I-know
I-better-say-something-because-this-just-isn’t-right
and-can-you-please-just-get-this-off”

sticks out her tongue and it is completely white.

Immediately the outright bawling started.

I don’t wanna go to the mergencyyyyyyyyy!!!

DOH!

The one thing I didn’t think of in my litany of rules. I suppose I could have also reminded her not to say…run with the bulls in Pamplona or ever exit a moving vehicle but gahhh.

Then the fun starts, Ang quickly grabs her and does the right thing rinsing her mouth out with toothpaste and a toothbrush while I am reading the fine print on the back of the paint bucket.

SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION IMMEDIATELY!

Then the real parent grabs the phone and dials poison control while I stomp around being angry with myself for not thinking to explicitly list “don’t eat the paint” in my Rules List and wondering aloud “Why did you do that? That is POISON!”

There I go, setting off that bomb. Somebody take me out of the room. Is there another word that has more gut-wrenching impact on a 4 year old who has learned not to even approach the underside of a kitchen sink and recoils physically at the very sight of [insert nasty cleanser name here].
Now she starts to cry, uncontrollably so, then sticking her tongue out and looking at it in the mirror with morbid fascination, then more crying.

Poison control, in their very calm and reassuring “we’ve seen worse” way told us that she would be fine, just drink some milk, she didn’t ingest nearly enough to cause at worst a mild tummy ache. They maintain an enviable database of information whilst performing a MOST un-enviable service. They called back two hours later to check on us.

Oh yeah, and after I smartly removed myself to the paint room, I noticed little white tongue marks on the drop-cloth where she was trying to wipe that nasty substance off. By now, they were “cute little tongue marks”.
Later she said

Daddy, I am just a little girl and you and Mommy know better.
Besides, I didn’t know what it tasted like.

I think we should tell Bella.

Thanks Ang, for doing the right thing with control and restraint.
You are a good Mommy and you know better.