"Poison Control, how can I help you?"

I sat with my coffee yesterday morning and made a Monday - Friday calendar that lays out what chores I would need to complete each day so my house does not ALWAYS look like it threw up on itself. It is on my fridge as a reminder and I jumped out of the gates running this morning after getting the older kids to school and taking the baby to Nana's.

My house is not one of those houses you see on the news. No bags of garbage, no piles of stuff taller than me. I am just tired of wading through a high tide of legos, hot wheels, Thomas trains while searching through dirty plates and bowls of squishy cereal for the ringing phone that always seems to hide beneath the muck. I am nauseated by the amount of dust that lays in a blanket over my entertainment center and the many case-less DVDs, box-less movies and hidden food wrappers.

Really. It's not that bad but I tend to write more than I clean lately and with a VERY anal husband, it makes me feel bad that he works so hard to allow me to stay home and I can't even keep the house clean. 3 kids and almost 3,000 square feet is just ridiculously out of control sometimes!

So, today I planned to vacuum and dust and if time allowed I was going to start a project as I have declared Wednesday 'Project Day.' I vacuumed while the baby was at Nana's and when he came home I popped in his favorite movie -Stuart Little 2 - 5 minutes later, I called POISON CONTROL!

While I was getting rid of that petrified layer of dust with my spackling knife, my Stuart Little fan decided this product (although put on the counter, where I thought it was out of his reach - with NO lid on) looked a little like lemonade. When I turned around, his little mouth was hiding the opening of the spout. I didn't know if he had kicked his head back and gotten a mouthful or if this glimpse was the first touch...I SCREAMED, "NOOOOOO!"

I grabbed the bottle and looked at the label: KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN. FATAL IF SWALLOWED. ALWAYS REPLACE LID WHEN NOT IN USE.

Now, you must know, the spout on this bottle is sort of like a red wine vinegar spout, only one drop comes out at a time - you have to shake it to get a significant amount of fluid out.

Hello, Poison Control (1-800-222-1222) this is Mimi.

Mimi, the nurse I spoke to, asked if he coughed at all after I took it away from him. "Sob, sob, sob, snort - NO - sob, sob." She then told me that they have to put that on the bottle but the actual danger isn't in the swallowing but in actually breathing the liquid into the lungs. This will cause chemical pneumonia which is fatal b/c there is no way to clean the lungs of the oily substance. She said protocol is to call back in 1 hour, then 6 hours, then 24 hours. She reassured me that since he did not sputter and cough - there was most likely nothing to worry about.

He is fine. And he continued his rampage through my house while I tried to finish my dusting.

Mimi told me to give him some yogurt to keep the inside of his mouth from getting irritated from the oil...he thought he needed to make a 2-year old statement instead.

Oh, sorry, NOW he's done making his statement. The chicken nuggets is his piece de resistence.

Soon after this yogurt incident, a friend stopped by (Hi, Janet) and as we chatted just inside the front door, the baby ran past and into the office. A mere 3 seconds later, Janet says, "Ummm, do you want him to be doing that?" I glance in the office thinking, "What is he drinking, now?' only to find him standing on my swivel chair aiming the Febreze at my open laptop. All of this ridiculous chaos for this...

...a dusted, organized entertainment center. Why do I even try? UGH!

As if a subliminal reminder, I found my dust cloth under this book. Really. If you should read this book, you probably don't have the time to.