Vacation - Final Chapter

[continued from previous post]

The next day was Sunday and our final day at the hotel. We finished up our MagiQuest game, claimed her arcade tickets for a prize and headed out, stopping at her grandparent's house on the way. We picked up the dog from her other grandparents, and finally got back home around 7:00 PM. She was a good girl for the whole day.

Then night came.

I mentioned in a previous blog that we took the side off of Hailey's crib to make it a toddler bed that she can get in and out of. That was the key factor in our final story The Poison Control Phone Call.

At McDonald's (gah, that place keeps coming back) she had gotten several Lego cars from her Happy Meals. Well, when she went to bed Sunday night she wanted to play with them in her crib and we told her no, because she needed to go to sleep. She was apparently not happy with that answer because as soon as we left her room, she grabbed them anyway. That was not all she grabbed. I was barely 10 feet away in the doorway of our computer room when ninja Hailey decided she was going to go into our room, climb my dresser and get two bottles of (expensive) nail polish. Neither Nathan nor I saw or heard any of this happening - which is odd because the giggles usually give her away.

I walked past her room and saw her hide something behind her back. I saw one of the Lego cars in her bed and assumed that was what she was hiding...not the case. Hailey apparently decided she wanted to paint her toenails. Nathan found it and we descended on her like a pack of wild animals...patting down her crib, bedding, countless stuffed animals in bed with her, her pajamas...everything. The only thing she got polish on was a water proof pad that I was considering throwing out anyway. She had painted the pink on the pad, and successfully replaced the brush without getting any on the bottle. The clear polish wasn't as neat. I saw she had unscrewed the top and gotten polish all over the opening...without spilling it or even getting it on the sides of the bottle. We were really lucky. Until we looked at her face. Pink and clear polish...on both cheeks, right by her mouth.

Um...not good. I asked her if she had put in in her mouth and she replied in her unreliable three-year-old fashion that she had. I looked at the bottles...no poison info...that didn't surprise me as most people don't try to polish their tongues. I went online and Googled 'nail polish ingestion'. The bits of information that I found online did not make me feel good. But it was hard for me to concentrate on what was really out there and I knew better than to panic over something I read on the Internet. So I looked up the phone number for poison control.

Those people are ridiculously nice...and calm. I gave her the brand name of the polish and in less than a minute, she told me I had nothing to worry about, particularly because Hailey was acting just fine. We gave her water and watched her for a bit. Honestly, neither Nathan or I thinks she really put it in her mouth, we would have heard a 'Yuck!' Regardless, it is not the kind of thing that you just brush aside. I don't think I excessively worry, but it's when I don't feel informed that I get stressed out, so I was glad I called.

My nail polish has all been moved, and the door to our room is now shut. I still feel some guilt over it. It was in a place she shouldn't have been able to reach, but I should know by now I can't underestimate my daughter and her ninja skills.

Of course, the next day, her birthday, we scheduled her three-year-old portraits. We spent the morning getting her ready and had to pick dried nail polish off her cheeks before we went in for photos. Never a dull moment.

And that, dear freinds, was our vacation....let me say that again, slowly....va -ca - tion....our relaxing vacation with our, bathroom barging, water-spitting, beagle puppy, nail polish eating three-year old.

I honestly can't wait to do it again next year!

[for more pictures of our Trip to Great Wolf Lodge, go to the Y Spot photo page...here]