I Think I Poisoned The Baby

Tonight my 23-month-old daughter threw a temper tantrum after handing me a jar of Flintstones vitamins she pulled from the pantry and telling me she wanted the “princesses” that were inside.

I hadn’t a fucking clue what she was referring to, which left me with the heartbreaking role of informing her there were no princesses in her Flintstones vitamins, only Flintstones. I opened the jar up and showed her the gummy Fred and Barney vitamins. She took them from my hand, examined them, then threw them on the floor, before breaking down again, screaming, “Want princess! Want princess! Want princess!”

I closed the door to the pantry, which upset her even more. She haplessly banged the door, screaming furiously for the princess.

So I opened the door again, grabbed the Flintstones jar, took out two gummies again and showed them to her. “Look here, princesses!” I told her. This time, she stopped crying, examined the two pieces, and ate them. “Ooh, those are princesses, daddy!” she said with delight. I was thrilled, briefly, because up until now, she’d refused to ever even taste these vitamins.

I couldn’t wait to tell my wife: I got her to take the vitamins, finally! A little victory for Steve’s pocket there.

Until it hit me: Two gummies might be more than the recommended dosage for a child under 2. I quickly grabbed the jar and read the label, which confirmed my worst fears: children under 2 should only have ONE gummy vitamin per day!

Fuck! What do I do? I wondered, had I’d poisoned my child? Did I over-vitamin her? What will happen to her? Should I feed her bread only for the rest of the day to negate the future vitamin intake she’d receive from her dinner? Should I call poison control? Should I stick my fingers down her throat? What will I tell my wife? Do I tell my wife? Is there anything my wife did earlier today that I can blame on her for this when our daughter starts growing a third arm? So many thoughts all at once — until I realized my daughter was screaming at me again.

She wanted more! “More princesses Daddy!” she screamed as she returned to her fist-banging fury.

And now, even if I believed there were princesses in this jar, I definitely could not give them to her now because I’d already poisoned her with two princesses.

“I can’t give you any more princesses honey,” I calmly told her.

“No daddy! More princess! Want more! Blarggghhhhhhhh!” she screamed, tears streaking down her face. How do I explain to her that she’s already taken twice the recommended dosage?

And then it dawned on me: Hide-and-Seek.

She can’t resist this classic game. So as she stood there, screaming and bawling and stomping, I quickly ran into the pantry and pulled the door almost-shut.

“Where’s daddy? Daddy where are you? Daddy where are you?” I yelled.

Silence.

No more crying. Did she pass out from the second vitamin? I feel like the avocado my wife cut up for her earlier was kind of old. How do we know she didn’t pass out from that?

And then, a burst of light. The door was pulled open, and she stood there, a huge smile on her face. She’d found me. I ran out and darted into the living room and hid next to the couch and did it again. Overjoyed, she found me once again. I repeated this process for about 15 minutes until the princesses were hardly a memory.

Thankfully, there were no ill effects from the double dose of vitamins. And they all lived happily ever after…