Charcoal in your pudding? Yuck..
Yes, we've been to Hilton Head. What a wonderful car ride it was, singing "Country Roads" and driving through Kentucky and West Virginia. We could not believe how glitzy our apartment was, and that we had a wonderful swirling hot jacuzzi in our room. Jeremy got a plastic shark on the end of a fishing pole, and filled the bathtub with water to practice his technique. Brian and John went to practice their TV watching technique. Jason practiced his food researching skills. We had 5 boys at the time. Jeremy, Jason, John, Brian, and Weslee. Since Jim gets very seasick on boats, and we planned for a fishing trip, he had dramamine along. That first day, he had an entire tube of it, and he took some, left it out. When I went back to the bedroom, the pills were all over the bedroom, and many were missing. We quick counted and found as many as we could. We collected the boys, went on a search. I explained that baby Weslee probably thought they were candy, and we needed to see how many were missing, in case he had eaten a lot. He had. We called the hospital, and they said to bring him in. Now Jim and I were totally distraught. In a strange town, no way to see where we were headed, no idea if we were on the right track, what we were doing. Weslee was not verbal, a baby.
The ride was torture. We finally arrived at emergency. It was a Saturday morning. The first day of our vacation, and we had left 4 boys in the hotel left all alone. At least they were together, and almost 10 (John) or teens. Since we had no idea how much dramamine Weslee had taken, they told us they would give him a mixture of charcoal in pudding, which he had to eat. We would have him eat it, all of it, and that would absorb the pills. We should have him eat it as quickly as possible. Well, he did not like it. Not that he spit it out, or refused it, it just was no fun. He mouthed it, made funny faces, and we kept doing things like going "chu-chu" and "goody-goody". Jim tasted it, and thought he would die, but since it was doctor's orders we kept going. We were in this small room for hours, and someone checked on us off and on, two sweaty parents, and this baby with charcoal oozing from his mouth and lips, and blotches of dark gooey pudding like mud all over his body. As the hours progressed, and I got wearier, and I guess there were more pressing cases at hand, no one came to check on us. What if we had all just... been abducted or something? I stuck my head out the door... people rushed back and forth paying no attention to us...Jim made a valiant attempt to go to the nurse's station and find out where we stood in the line of cases being attended to. "Oh, yes, you seem to be doing all right. I guess he ate enough of that pudding. He doen't need any more. If he hadn't eaten enough he would be dead by now."
Was that the head nurse's strange sense of humor, or did she think we had done a fine job cramming that charcoal down Weslee's throat? I will never know. Suffice it to say, we cleaned him up best we could, and decided we had spent sufficient time at the emergency room. Racing home to see our boys, I told them what had happened (before the day of cell phones!).
There was a suspicious smoky smell in the hotel room, that I had not noticed when we left. When asked about the aroma, the boys, looked around, which sends up "Red Flags" to mothers everywhere. I look for other clues. Dishes in the sink. Strange dark brown stains, the kind made by....scorching flames. hmmmm. I need to look into the...."NOOOOO MOM Don't look into the..." Too late, I open the microwave to find a mess. Apparently someone had tried to cook- the story comes out that Brian used the directions for cooking Ramon noodles, put them in a bowl, in the microwave for 8 minutes, without water, and they burned. No one thought to check on them, probably because kids were glued to the TV, until they were aflame. We spent a bit of time trying to get the smoke and smell out of the oven, and the apartment.
The rest of the vacation was wonderful. The children went swimming at the beach. There was some consternation because Jeremy continued to catch huge sting rays, shark and other fish right off the beach. He is an amazing fisherman. There were programs for the children including tie dying shirts, game events, swimming and other parent free times for children. I will always remember that wonderful time in Hilton Head, but mostly because of that long day at the hospital with Weslee and the charcoal pudding!
The ride was torture. We finally arrived at emergency. It was a Saturday morning. The first day of our vacation, and we had left 4 boys in the hotel left all alone. At least they were together, and almost 10 (John) or teens. Since we had no idea how much dramamine Weslee had taken, they told us they would give him a mixture of charcoal in pudding, which he had to eat. We would have him eat it, all of it, and that would absorb the pills. We should have him eat it as quickly as possible. Well, he did not like it. Not that he spit it out, or refused it, it just was no fun. He mouthed it, made funny faces, and we kept doing things like going "chu-chu" and "goody-goody". Jim tasted it, and thought he would die, but since it was doctor's orders we kept going. We were in this small room for hours, and someone checked on us off and on, two sweaty parents, and this baby with charcoal oozing from his mouth and lips, and blotches of dark gooey pudding like mud all over his body. As the hours progressed, and I got wearier, and I guess there were more pressing cases at hand, no one came to check on us. What if we had all just... been abducted or something? I stuck my head out the door... people rushed back and forth paying no attention to us...Jim made a valiant attempt to go to the nurse's station and find out where we stood in the line of cases being attended to. "Oh, yes, you seem to be doing all right. I guess he ate enough of that pudding. He doen't need any more. If he hadn't eaten enough he would be dead by now."
Was that the head nurse's strange sense of humor, or did she think we had done a fine job cramming that charcoal down Weslee's throat? I will never know. Suffice it to say, we cleaned him up best we could, and decided we had spent sufficient time at the emergency room. Racing home to see our boys, I told them what had happened (before the day of cell phones!).
There was a suspicious smoky smell in the hotel room, that I had not noticed when we left. When asked about the aroma, the boys, looked around, which sends up "Red Flags" to mothers everywhere. I look for other clues. Dishes in the sink. Strange dark brown stains, the kind made by....scorching flames. hmmmm. I need to look into the...."NOOOOO MOM Don't look into the..." Too late, I open the microwave to find a mess. Apparently someone had tried to cook- the story comes out that Brian used the directions for cooking Ramon noodles, put them in a bowl, in the microwave for 8 minutes, without water, and they burned. No one thought to check on them, probably because kids were glued to the TV, until they were aflame. We spent a bit of time trying to get the smoke and smell out of the oven, and the apartment.
The rest of the vacation was wonderful. The children went swimming at the beach. There was some consternation because Jeremy continued to catch huge sting rays, shark and other fish right off the beach. He is an amazing fisherman. There were programs for the children including tie dying shirts, game events, swimming and other parent free times for children. I will always remember that wonderful time in Hilton Head, but mostly because of that long day at the hospital with Weslee and the charcoal pudding!
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