Growth

I know this may come as a surprise, as it did to me, but these little people in my house, the small, sometimes extremely loud, extremely smelly ones actually grow. I should know this. I have pencil marks, lines with dates and names smudged next to them, on my wall in the hallway near the laundry room documenting their growth. I watch them, everyday, shove gobs and gobs of food down their mouths in order to fuel their growth. Every time I dress them I notice that the space between the hem of their pants and the top of their shoes gets a bit wider.

They grow. I should know this. The smallest of the three little people in my house seems to growing at a faster rate that the bigger two. I should have realized this when he was able to take the eggs out of the fridge and throw them one by one onto the floor. I should have known he was getting bigger when he went into the knife drawer and brought me all of the sharp steak knives and the pair of scissors that he found. You would think I would have noticed him growing when he was able to reach the top of the stove in an effort to grab the boiling pot of water. But I missed all of those signs. I knew he was growing but for some reason I kept forgetting.

The sign of his growth that I did not miss happened a couple of weeks ago.

Early one morning my wife Lauren went out for a run. She left me in charge of the growing little people. I was folding laundry and preparing breakfast (multi tasking) when the littlest small person, Jackson, went up to his room to play with his cars. After a few minutes of silence (cars crashing is not a quiet game)  I knew I had to go check on him. As I approached his door, he slammed it closed and yelled, "No!", which is not a good sign.

I opened the door and the first thing I saw was a small puddle of pink syrup on the floor. Laying next to the puddle was an empty bottle of Benadryl. I looked at Jackson and noticed pink syrup dripping from his lip and running down his shirt.  I asked him if he drank the Benadryl and he said that he did. When I asked how much did he drink he said "A lot." I did not know how much medicine was in the bottle to begin with so I went into a bit of a panic. More of a panic then the time when a three-year-old Wyatt drank almost a full beer. Panics at 6:30 in the morning move a lot slower than afternoon panics.

I made a few attempts to stick my finger down Jackson's throat hoping to get him to vomit. I forgot that these little people also grow teeth, sharp little teeth. He did not vomit. I texted my neighbor, who is a nurse and asked her for advice. While I waited for her to respond I called Poison Control.  They were very helpful in determining how much Benadryl would be dangerous to Jack but we did not know how much he ingested. I was on the phone with Poison Control when Lauren got back from her run.

I hate when these things happen on my watch.

Let me just say this, if you were to return home to your kids at 6:55 AM and your husband was on the phone with Poison Control, there is no way you would react the way that Lauren did. She was calm, cool, and collected. She listened with patience as I told her all that had happened. She only gave me the "you are an idiot" eye-roll once. Okay maybe twice. The nurse neighbor showed up a few minutes later and gave me the "you are an idiot" eye-roll several times. She checked Jackson's vitals and made us feel better. We observed Jackson for the next two hours and finally relaxed when we knew he was going to be okay.

In trying to figure out how Jackson could have gotten the bottle of Benadryl, we realized that we kept the bottle on the middle shelf in the hall closet. Three months ago Jackson was not tall enough to reach the middle shelf, now he is.

That is how I realized these little people grow.

Jackson turns three tomorrow. I want to congratulate myself on not messing him up completely as of yet. I want to congratulate my wife for not killing me, as of yet.

Happy Birthday Jackson Grey, don't grow too fast.