You know those days when you wake up and you’re all “I’VE GOT THIS”? I woke up that way last Tuesday. I had grand plans of finally cleaning the messy house, doing laundry, and organizing old clothes to sell at the upcoming consignment sale.

Ever since Jed joined the scene, we’re a little bit of a circus in the mornings. I’ve come to realize that sitcoms showing a family as being a circus aren’t over-exaggerating. So, after throwing some breakfast at Ella and hurriedly getting her dressed, it was time for her to rush out the door with Daddy for school. As she walked out, I grabbed the container of gummy vitamins and threw one at her because, well, school germs. (She later told me she put the gummy in her pocket and waited to eat it at school to show everyone her vitamin. We’re special.) After throwing a vitamin at her, I threw one at Charlotte because, well, germs.

Next, Ella was at preschool. John was at work. Jed was napping. Charlotte ate breakfast and was glued to an episode of Sofia the First. I had my coffee and was ready to do. this. thang.

Up first, getting the consignment sale clothes. My plan was a super quick trip upstairs to grab the stuff to organize and back down. Once I got up there, I realized the laundry basket I was going to use was full of clean, folded clothes that I never put away. Oops.

Well, Charlotte is quiet downstairs watching TV, I can put it away real quick…

I put the clean clothes away and then grabbed the consignment sale clothes. As I was walking down the stairs, I noticed how quiet it was in my house.

Lookie here, I am going to get all of my list down today! It’s not even 9:00am and I am owning this day!

Guys, if you have a Charlotte, NEVER THINK THESE THINGS. Instead (as I thought I had already learned by now) you need to be thinking:

HIGH ALERT: whhhhy is it quiet?! I should investigate immediately!

So, I mosey into the living room with my laundry basket full of old clothes and Charlotte is no longer glued to the TV. I first run to the kitchen because she likes to steal harmless things like an apple from the fridge. Nope, no apples.

Cue Charlotte on the kitchen floor with the brand new container of gummy vitamins and she’s chomping away like she’s hit the 3 year old jackpot. I yank the container away and start screaming. Not at her, but, at the air. The air around the house wanted to hear me screaming.

I start pacing the house screaming at the air.

“OH. MY. GOSH.!!! What do I do?!? OH. MY. GOSH.!!!”

Somehow there weren’t cuss words flying out of mouth. I can only assume the Holy Spirit took over.

So, instead of analyzing the victim, I’m pacing the house. Screaming. And, holding the gummy container in one hand and my phone in the other. Charlotte is now crying. Not because she was hurting in any way. But, let’s face it, she was probably convinced her mother has officially gone off the deep end. It couldn’t have possibly been all of the screaming at the air.

So, guys, I just stared at my phone. Somewhere in the recesses of my brain was, “Call poison control”. But, when you are running around screaming, it’s hard to form the thought coherently to actually know what to do with your phone. I did what any logical person would do, call their spouse and ask what to do.

First call: straight to voicemail.
My response? More screaming. Because that’s an effective solution.

Second call: ringing and ringing. Which, leads to me screaming things like,
“PICK UP THE PHONE!” Because, again, helpful.

He picks up. I scream/blurt something about Charlotte eating half of the container of gummy vitamins and I have no clue what to do. He seemed a little taken off guard because how do you respond when your wife is hysterically yelling in the phone and the three year old is crying her eyes out in the background?

I mutter something about poison control (bingo! I remembered the name!) and John proceeds to try and search the number on his phone with me on the line. His phone started acting up and he starts mumbling about it not working right.

Um, you guys, he might as well have screamed something about it being impossible to help me. Because, next, I yelled,

“Well, you’re not helping!! I’ve gotta go figure this out!!!”

*click*

Oh my gosh, I yelled and hung up on my husband. For all that is good and holy, I didn’t. even. remember. I did that until later that afternoon. Thank the good Lord that he’s still willing to be married to me.

So, after hanging up on my husband, I finally have the sense to Google “poison control”. Guys, I know what you’re thinking… It was such a hard task, but I did it. No need to applaud my deeply difficult and heroic move.

I dial the number. And, by dial the number, I mean just press my finger to the first Google search result. I know, you’re impressed by all of my hard work. It’s okay. There will come a day when, just maybe, your skills can outrank mine.

As the phone rings, I finally sit down and ask Charlotte to sit in my lap. She’s gone down now to a whimper type of cry. As she sits in my lap, I’ve now reached the next level in my crazy, the tears. I sit there crying, instead of screaming, and think of what a loser I am for leaving the gummies out. Now the call is answered and I’m trying to speak coherently to a stranger.

He asked me a few questions, which included
“How many did she eat?”

About that…

“Well, this package is 180 and it was new. About half is gone….” I said while imagining him flipping through his rolodex for Child Protective Services.

“90?”

Even the sweet poison control guy had “what in the world?! 90 gummy vitamins?!” twinge to his voice. Yeah, well, go big or go home in this family…

After a few calculations, he came back on to say that she would have to eat 218 of these vitamins to reach the low level of toxicity. And, since Charlotte only ate 90, she should be fine. I had to hold my laughter. As soon as I hung up, I started laughing.

Let’s do a quick recap of all the emotions… accomplishment, terror, screaming, anger, crying, and then LAUGHTER. Oh my word. Out of control. In case you’re keeping track of my to-do list for that day, ain’t none of it got done. I might as well have run a marathon in those 5-10 minutes of the gummy saga. And, just for good measure, I didn’t get to any of that list for days.

So, folks, for those of us that leave gummy vitamins open and on the counter, those that accidentally leave the baby gate open and the 17mo old falls down a flight of stairs, those that forget to hide the magical Christmas elf when you told the kids that it flew back to the North Pole weeks ago, those that tell their 4 year old they’re never going to eat lunch again because they stole cheese from the fridge for the 50th time, and those that have done one billion other things wrong…

This is FOR US!!

We may not be winning at this whole parenthood thing, but we sure are having a laugh while surviving it!