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Home, Safe Home

Part Two

By Jenny Rackley

"During our child's first three years," Bill Price says, "we had the phone company run a dedicated line to the poison control center. Bill's son announced one day, "I've took vit-ees!" which were antibiotics he had taken from his mother's purse. "That was the only time we needed ipecac syrup," Bill says. One day, Bill's son opened up a toilet-tank block, which had fallen out of the grocery bag as the family was putting the groceries away. He peeled off the cellophane, and licked his fingers to get some of the tiny crystals that had come loose. Luckily, there was no adverse reaction, and Scott was fine. Despite their childproofing efforts, Bill says, "Curious kids can be amazingly resourceful."

"We're glad we kept the serious stuff-the rat poison, lye, battery acid-under lock and key in the garage," Bill says. "And we're glad God takes care of fools and little children."

Florence Cardinal once had prescribed narcotics in the house. One morning she found her found four-year-old in front of the kitchen sink with an empty pill bottle in his hand. She rushed him to the hospital, and they pumped his stomach. There were no pills in there, however. They must have all been poured down the sink. "That episode was a lesson to me," Cardinal says. "My pills went onto the topmost shelf from then on."