Yesterday evening, while Erdgeist and I were just about to add some finishing touches to the Datenschleuder, my two-and-a-quarter-year old son Joshua decided to eat a pellet of toilet detergent that had spilled onto the floor of the bathroom just seconds earlier while my wife Mascha was just a mere two meters next to him shouting "No, don't put it in your mouth, don't!"

Now apart from the troubling fact, that a manufacturer of such a detergent would (obviously) make the lid of such a cointainer "child proof", but not check, whether the container itself can survive the fall from a cabinet this incident showed us quite a few things. We're just not quite sure which altogether.

One of these things, however - and it's present strongly even now, 24 hours after the incident - is how the concern over the safety of your own child can transform everything instantly. You grow wings. You focus on the present. It's amazing.

Josh was screaming his head off, the poor guy - that stuff is really hard-core acid and the inside of his mouth was bright red. After talking to the toxicological hotline (yes, Mascha's got that number, too, she's simply the greatest Mom!) we raced to the hospital. We soon learned that there was no major threat, thank God. But we still couldn't rule out, that he hadn't swallowed any of the detergent, so he was hooked up to a monitor and had to stay the night. Thankfully, I was able to get a bed, too and stay with him through the night, while Mascha could take Sam home, who was crying, too, but for his very own gastritic reasons...

Going through these hours of pain had quite shaken Josh, plus at this time he still would not drink or eat anything (another symptom that he might have swallowed some of the poison...) But the same power of will that lets him ignore his parents when he has set his mind on something also let him endure this trial and the monitoring cables were long enough for him to snuggle up in my bed and after some crying for Mommy he eventually fell asleep.

In the night he woke up crying again and I gave him the bottle of water he had been refusing until then and he stopped to cry immediately, emptied it within a minute and fell asleep again. Words can't describe the relief I felt sinking back into my pillow ;-)

Well, by the time the doctors came for the exam that was necessary to be dismissed from the clinic the next morning, Mascha and Sam had come back and Josh was happily running around the clinic and terroriz^Wenchanting staff and patients alike...

Well, and another thing this has showed me is how fortunate I am to have this family and how much I love them. Apparently, kids have means to make sure you won't forget that. ;-)