Last summer I taught Emery to smell flowers. It’s been our thing when we go out to get the mail. We would stop and smell the roses along the fence and in our yard. Never once did I think my child would actually try to eat one! A few days ago it happened. While we enjoyed the unseasonably warm winter weather, I was picking weeds and she was 3 feet away from me sniffing our calla lily’s. She came over and I saw her chewing something orange. I know I hadn’t given her anything to eat, and her father was in the garage. It dawned on me to check the flower! Sure enough she for some unknown reason ate a piece of the stigma ( the orange stick of pollen on the flower ).
Apparently these flowers are poisonous. I only found out after my husband frantically scoured the web for answers while I called poison control. It seemed like my plans for the day would end up in the emergency room. The remedy was ice chips or ice cream. The calla lily contains calcium oxalate, that may burn or irritate the tongue, lips, throat or enough is eating it can give stomach pain and diarrhea. If you find yourself in this situation, make sure to wash their mouth out with cold water. Luckily Emery didn’t ingest any of the flower, I caught her in time and had her spit it out. Her tongue bothered her for a bit but not long. The Dr. said it was actually common for a child to eat a flower and that he had a child in the day before, but that case was more severe. Plant danger is something I think about during the Christmas season, when all the poinsettia are out. It’s out of my mind by spring. So now along with all the normal dangers I have to watch out for, this spring and summer I will be watching her like hawk! I don’t need her putting anything else in her mouth. And its a good reason to get rid of these flowers in the front yard, something I had been trying to do for a while.Over all it was another hard lesson learned!
mommylaughs 