Advice to Moms

Yesterday I learned a lesson. To know every type of plant that you have in your home. Ava's new favorite place is the bathroom. She is obsessed with playing in the toilet and taking the tissue off the roll. So I am constantly pulling her out, closing the lid, and re-rolling the TP. Our house is old and the bathroom door doesn't latch, so keeping her out of there is difficult. Yesterday I heard her in the bathroom and went in there and she was eating a leaf off of the plant on the back of the toilet. I never thought of this plant getting her attention since she is so obsessed with the other things in there. I immediately called poison control, although I doubted they would be able to help me since I had absolutely no idea what type of plant this was. They advised me to call a local greenhouse and describe the plant to them and see if they could tell me what it is and to call them back. I called and explained to the extremely unhelpful and uncaring lady what had happened. She said the only advise she could give me is to take the leaf to the hospital and let poison control see what kind of plant it is. To which I told her that if the plant was indeed poisionous my daughter would be dead before I could get the leaf to the hospital. As I burst into tears I thanked her for not being willing to help me. This woman obviously is not a mother, a mother would have tried to help the best she could. I got online and finally found a website that had pictures of poisionous plants, which this one was. Thankfully it is not a plant that can kill someone, it has crystals that can cause discomfort in the mouth. I called poison control back and they told me to give her milk, which must be a cure all. In all of my experiences calling poison control (and there have been many) the solution has always been milk. So what I have learned is, to know your plants and always have milk.