Calling Poison Control

This morning I had the privilege of chatting with the very helpful gentleman at Poison Control. My kids are somewhat picky eaters. Spencer loves beans and hot sauce, Ryan devours pasta, and Emily thrives on fruit. Venturing out of those things tends to be a challenge--usually. Not today. We had pancakes for breakfast (which all of the kids love) this morning and I made syrup. In order to make 1/2 cup of syrup you need 1/8 teaspoon of maple extract, to get that minute amount I opened a brand new bottle. I set it on the counter and fed the kids breakfast, got Spencer off to school and then came home and fed Caleb. Now, to clean the kitchen...umm, what's this? An empty bottle of mapeline on the table? Uuh...Guys, where did the stuff in this bottle go? Emily: (covering her mouth) in my mouth? (Deeeeep breath--let it out slowly) Did you drink it? Ummmmm yeahno. Emily did you put this in your mouth? I dunno. (another deep breath) Instead of insanely trying to have a coherent conversation with a three year old, I chose to call poison control. Did you know that only one ounce of extract at 12% alcohol can put a child's blood alcohol level at .049? Enough to make her act quite drunk and possibly pass out since kids are extremely sensitive to the effects of alcohol? That is one of the helpful things I learned from Mike as we chatted on the phone this morning. Emily is fine. I found--much later--that she had not consumed a tasty shooter because the sink in the bathroom smelled oddly like syrup. Moral of the story: avoid learning new things from poison control; keep extract out of reach of children.