The reason we have the poison control number on our phone

Today, I got another bad mom award, though not one that necessitates dropping quarters in the therapy jar. Connor does, indeed, have an ear infection. After a very long wait at the pediatrician's office, the last instruction I thought I received was "Give Connor THREE TO FOUR teaspoons of amoxicillan". With prescription in hand, I headed to the local pharmacy, and then home. I thought it was odd that there was such a wide range in the dosage, but didn't think enough of it, apparently. I got out the medicine syringe, which only goes up to TWO teaspoons and said to the nanny "Wow, three to four teaspoons is a lot of medicine to give a baby". She agreed. Connor drank THREE teaspoons up fairly easily. This was repeated in the evening, at which point I said to Ed "there's no way there's enough medicine in this bottle to last 10 days" and Ed said "the math is pretty simple, there must be enough there". After a decent night's sleep, I got up to give Connor dose three - at which point I'm certain an ashen look came over my face as I told Ed "I think I'm supposed to be giving Connor three-fourths of a teaspoon - NOT THREE TO FOUR TEASPOONS". I called poison control. Sort of in a joking manner we had put the stickers on our phone when the pediatrician sent them home with us a few months back. Now, I'm glad the stickers are there.

The very kind lady at poison control (who now has my name and number along with all of the other bad moms who accidentally poison their children) told me there was nothing to worry about. She even said that if I had realized my mistake right away they wouldn't have had me do anything about it. The only side effect is that Connor may have a bit of "loose poop", which would actually be a miracle for Connor - though I promise to not use this as a strategy to empty his bowels more regularly.

Now I have to figure out what to tell the pediatrician when we run out of medicine early - though my recollection from the other time Connor had amoxicillin is that there was a bunch left over. I'm crossing my fingers about that. This might be what I get for making snarky comments about Ed being an idiot in front of the pediatrician.

Elaine