Posted Wednesday, November 1, 2006 - 23:31 by Anonymous
We had to cancel Halloween. Both Thomas and Hayley were very sick yesterday, so Thomas couldn’t even go to school, let alone run around the neighborhood ringing doorbells. It turns out that he has a double ear infection and Hayley has some sort of irritation in her throat and they’re both congested and sniffling. They were much better today, until Thomas got bleach in his eye this evening.
I was just getting ready to give Hayley a bath when Thomas, standing on the training potty behind me, started screaming and rubbing his eyes. I immediately noticed a bleach smell and realized that I had left the spray-bottle of bleach-water on the counter. After all of the cleaning-up I’ve been doing over the last few days with potty accidents and barfing, I’d just forgotten to put it away, or even turn the sprayer to the “off” position. Duh! Actually, “duh” doesn’t cut it. “Completely irresponsible and insanely negligent” describe it better. So the whole thing was my fault.
My husband and I immediately tried to get Thomas’ head under the kitchen faucet but succeeded only in really upsetting him and getting his hair wet. I called Poison Control and they said to rinse his eyes out for fifteen minutes and not let him rub them. We knew right away how unlikely it was that we’d be able to get Thomas to hold still while rinsing his eyes. Restraining Thomas for any reason is impossible without the help of hospital orderlies, but holding him down and pouring water in his face was an absurd thought. We did the best we could; Jonathan held him in the shower for about five minutes, but that was all we could do. Thomas is terrified of the shower spray.
After the shower, we all lay down together on the bed and Thomas calmed down a little. The gentleman I spoke to at Poison Control asked us to call back after an hour, so I did. I mentioned to him that Thomas is autistic, and he seemed attuned to our plight. He asked if Thomas could tell us if his eye was bothering him, and I told him “maybe.” I asked him, and Thomas said, “yes.” At that point, he wasn’t rubbing his eye at all (we had had to stop him from rubbing it earlier), so we figured it was okay. We’ll watch it over the next few days for any signs of irritation, but we think he’s going to be fine.
Never a dull moment.
Thomas missed yesterday and today at school, so I really don’t have any reports about that. I’m really sorry that I had to miss the little Halloween parade at his school yesterday, but my mother-in-law reminded me that he’s too young to know what he’s missing as far as parades and trick-or-treating. It’s much harder on me and Jonathan that Thomas missed it. Hopefully everyone will be healthy next Halloween and I’ll be able to see the parade. I’m not sure how it would have gone, though. Thomas gets confused when I show up at school in the middle of his day and it tends to turn out badly.
The potty-training continues to go really well; much better than we thought it would. He has figured out how to hold it for very long periods of time (several hours) and he did a really great job over the last couple of days despite being sick, probably because he was a little dehydrated.
I’d be very happy to sacrifice Halloween if we could be sure the kids would be well for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I wish such bargains existed.
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We had to cancel Halloween. Both Thomas and Hayley were very sick yesterday, so Thomas couldn’t even go to school, let alone run around the neighborhood ringing doorbells. It turns out that he has a double ear infection and Hayley has some sort of irritation in her throat and they’re both congested and sniffling. They were much better today, until Thomas got bleach in his eye this evening.
I was just getting ready to give Hayley a bath when Thomas, standing on the training potty behind me, started screaming and rubbing his eyes. I immediately noticed a bleach smell and realized that I had left the spray-bottle of bleach-water on the counter. After all of the cleaning-up I’ve been doing over the last few days with potty accidents and barfing, I’d just forgotten to put it away, or even turn the sprayer to the “off” position. Duh! Actually, “duh” doesn’t cut it. “Completely irresponsible and insanely negligent” describe it better. So the whole thing was my fault.
My husband and I immediately tried to get Thomas’ head under the kitchen faucet but succeeded only in really upsetting him and getting his hair wet. I called Poison Control and they said to rinse his eyes out for fifteen minutes and not let him rub them. We knew right away how unlikely it was that we’d be able to get Thomas to hold still while rinsing his eyes. Restraining Thomas for any reason is impossible without the help of hospital orderlies, but holding him down and pouring water in his face was an absurd thought. We did the best we could; Jonathan held him in the shower for about five minutes, but that was all we could do. Thomas is terrified of the shower spray.
After the shower, we all lay down together on the bed and Thomas calmed down a little. The gentleman I spoke to at Poison Control asked us to call back after an hour, so I did. I mentioned to him that Thomas is autistic, and he seemed attuned to our plight. He asked if Thomas could tell us if his eye was bothering him, and I told him “maybe.” I asked him, and Thomas said, “yes.” At that point, he wasn’t rubbing his eye at all (we had had to stop him from rubbing it earlier), so we figured it was okay. We’ll watch it over the next few days for any signs of irritation, but we think he’s going to be fine.
Never a dull moment.
Thomas missed yesterday and today at school, so I really don’t have any reports about that. I’m really sorry that I had to miss the little Halloween parade at his school yesterday, but my mother-in-law reminded me that he’s too young to know what he’s missing as far as parades and trick-or-treating. It’s much harder on me and Jonathan that Thomas missed it. Hopefully everyone will be healthy next Halloween and I’ll be able to see the parade. I’m not sure how it would have gone, though. Thomas gets confused when I show up at school in the middle of his day and it tends to turn out badly.
The potty-training continues to go really well; much better than we thought it would. He has figured out how to hold it for very long periods of time (several hours) and he did a really great job over the last couple of days despite being sick, probably because he was a little dehydrated.
I’d be very happy to sacrifice Halloween if we could be sure the kids would be well for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I wish such bargains existed.