Two
Peas in a Pod
Kathy
Rhodes
Two
peas in a pod. That’s what they are. The second son and the
dog. Why I was chosen to be graced twice in a row, I’m not
sure, but such is the case. Just alike—both blond and cute;
both clingy, yet stubbornly independent; each one equally jealous
of the other.
The
dog gets her teeth cleaned. “I need mine cleaned, too,”
the son says. “I need to go to the dentist more than she
does.” The dog gets fancy grooms with bows in her ears, designer
collars and leashes, and monogrammed fleece blankets. “She’s
high maintenance,” the son says. “You’re spending
all your money on her.” All through college
and even now when the son comes to visit, the dog stays right
with him because she knows he eats wonderful-smelling things all
day and well into the night, and she wants her due. She's not
gonna let him get one up on her.
A
striking similarity is that they both have food allergies. I became
an expert in that field when the son was little. He had acid reflux,
vomited often, and took Tagamet at the age of six. I decided we
weren’t going that route for long, so after three months,
I waved bye-bye to the doctor and became my child’s medical
expert. I kept a food journal for a full year to determine which
foods caused reactions, physical and emotional. “Are you
irritable?” I asked him once after a meal that included turkey.
“No!” he snapped. “My ears don’t hurt!”
I put him on a rotation diet. He wasn’t allowed to eat the
same meat, vegetable, fruit, or flour for three days. He had cookies
made with wheat flour, cookies made with rice flour, and cookies
made with oat flour, and we rotated them. It was tough, but he
got through it and learned to manage it on his own.
Lightning
is not supposed to strike twice in the same place, but along came
the dog, and lo and behold, she vomited after eating certain foods,
too, and developed irritable bowel syndrome. She’s on a limited
protein diet—venison and potatoes. It’s all she’s
supposed to eat, but I cheat and give her carrots, asparagus,
green beans, cantaloupe, pears and things that we can let slide
by.
Another
likeness in son (when he was a baby) and dog (forever!) is the
inclination to sweep across the floor and gobble up, like Pacman,
anything in their paths, sniffing out dropped morsels of food
and bugs and bits and pieces of paper. At times, they’ve
both gotten into trouble going where they should never go. The
dog ate twelve pantiliners out of the bathroom garbage one night.
Yes, ate them, swallowed them, one and all. And once, I found
a strawberry pie gone AWOL in the son’s toy box.
The
son kicked it up a notch on one particular occasion. I had a philodendron
plant on the top shelf of a baker’s stand. It trailed a vine
low enough for him to reach up and pick off a leaf. Where did
he put it? Yes, in his mouth. I knew to be alarmed. Prepared young
mother that I was, I called the poison control number conveniently
placed on the fridge and got a counselor trained to save lives
in emergency situations.
“My
fifteen-month-old swallowed a philodendron leaf.”
“A
what?”
“Philodendron
leaf.”
“Can
you spell that?”
“P-H-I-L-O-D-E-N-D-R-O-N.”
“Hold
on, let me go look it up,” she said. As she put me on hold,
I muttered that I knew it was poisonous.
She
returned to the phone. “It’s poisonous! Get him to the
nearest emergency room!”
“It’s
twenty-five miles away.”
“Well,
take him to the closest doctor.”
Okay,
I said, and called the local small-town clinic. “My son swallowed
a philodendron leaf and I need to see a doctor right away.”
“Do
you know what time it is?”
Well,
no, I hadn’t thought to check the clock. It was, after all,
an emergency. A quick glance told me it was one minute to five.
She
bellowed. “We’re closed! Can I put him down for Monday
morning?”
“No,
ma’am,” I answered. “Thank you, but he’ll
be dead by then.”
I
hung up and called my pediatrician, twenty-five miles away, and
told her the situation. “I have syrup of ipecac,” I
offered. Translated: I’m a good mom. Even if I have poisonous
plants in the house, I’m prepared to deal with them. She
told me how to proceed, and to make a long story short, I administered
the correct dose, took the child outside, and he vomited all over
the yard, and yes, I found the culprit bit of plant leaf.
This
all brings me to the point of the story. A couple of weeks ago,
I had a similar experience with the dog. I was unbagging groceries
and dropped a pack of Orbit gum into my purse, on the floor in
the hall. I had a second thought about it, but I was in a hurry
and left it there, in the unzipped center pouch. I returned ten
minutes later to a little pile of chewed up bits of cardboard
and paper, and the dog’s breath smelled like peppermint.
She’d stuck her big fat nose down deep in my purse and retrieved
my gum. A wave of panic washed over me, and I grabbed up what
was left of the box and tried to piece the pieces together. Xylitol.
Oh damn. Xylitol can kill a dog. I scrambled to find one
of six phones never in their cradles, rammed my toe on the couch
leg, ran back to the fridge where the vet’s card is placed
under a little magnet that says, “The Rat Race is Over…the
Rats Won!” all the while grumbling, “I’m too old
for motherhood!”
Kristi
put Dr. Dave on the phone immediately.
“ChaeliateapackofOrbitgumandithasXylitolinit!”
He
asked how much, then told me he thought she’d be okay…
“but give her a half cup of peroxide.” He knew he was
dealing with a frantic mother who wanted some action taken.
“Like
hydrogen peroxiiiiiide?”
“Yes.
It’ll make her vomit.”
“A
half a cup?”
“Well,
start with a fourth and see if that will do it.”
I
poured a fourth of a cup of peroxide into a spouted glass, put
the dog on a leash, and took her outside. I poured it in her mouth.
She was not happy. Her mouth foamed. I thought of Old Yeller and
hydrophobia. Puffy foam ran out both sides of her mouth in long
columns and dripped onto the sidewalk. Then she heaved and vomited
right in the middle of the street. A big pile of white foam and
bits of foil wrapper and paper and unchewed pieces of gum. My
own stomach roiled, too.
My
two blond children, like two peas in a pod, only I’m the
one who’s green.
©
Kathy Rhodes