ER

Jon and I have been joking that this will be an ER summer. I love my kids, but lets face it, Ben can be a klutz.  Sam is our wild child.  Ellie will climb on to and jump off of anything and Zach will do anything he sees  his siblings do.  We figured someone would break a bone or maybe a concussion.  Never did I imagine today. 
I was in the dining room with Ben when I heard an odd noise in the living room.  I found Ellie and Zach dumping out a bottle of Tylenol.  Poison control advised me that if they took a lethal amount, symptoms wouldn't show for about 12hrs.  At that point they would be vomiting and have severe stomach pain.  12hours later put us at midnight. They said I could take them to the ER for a blood draw.  If they don't have anything in their system, we could go home.  However, if they took something, we would have to wait for about 4 hrs to do a second blood draw and go from there.  
I refused an iv for the kids.  That meant one blood draw and if necessary a second stick.  Or 1 needle stick, but dealing with an iv.  The kids hated the hospital bracelets (and I was half way sure they didn't have enough time to ingest a lethal dose), I couldn't imagine leaving an iv in there.  The blood draw was terrible.  That is something I never want to do again.  While waiting for the results we met the social worker.  The woman who comes in pretending to be caring, but is really looking to see if I'm an unfit parent.  Annoying and condescending are 2 really good words for her.  I know she has a job to do, but this woman needs a refresher course in compassion.
After an hour of waiting to see the doctor and 1.5hrs to get the results, they decided the results weren't clear and another blood draw had to be done.  I was kicking myself for not doing the iv and the doctor did a great job of making me feel like worst mother of the year.  Another stick, another hour and a half to get the results.  Luckily, a friend works at the hospital and was able to visit and bring us some water and snacks.  The nurses were also very nice.  Jon was able to make it up there and at 5:30 we got the all clear.  
5 hours and I'm sure hundreds of dollars in copays and bills to find out they didn't eat any of it.  Peace of mind is a wonderful thing until the bill comes.  It sucks that they had to go through that, but I would have felt even worse if we didn't go and they got sick.  I'm glad we went in, but the rest of them better not even think about breaking a bone this summer!