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Thank goodness one of my 2009 resolutions was not "no calls to poison control" because I would have broke it 6 days into the new year.

I'm a believer in the ol' Mercury glass thermometers.  You know the ones that actually give you an accurate reading?  I've tried the ear ones, 99 degrees with an ear one really means 102 degrees.  Too much room for error for me.

So of course when Abby was burning up early yesterday morning, I pulled out my old trusty poison-laden friend and stuck it under her tongue.  I pulled it out a few hours later for a follow up and when I went to put it back in its container, I shattered the tip on the bathroom counter.

Yikes!  I looked and saw no mercury so I went about cleaning up the shards only to walk into the bathroom several hours later and see little silver beads all over my counter.  Double yikes!  Not to mention Abby had been in and out of the bathroom several times to wash her hands and use the hand towel that was RIGHT NEXT to the droplets of death.  Triple yikes!

Go ahead, award me loser-mom of the year right now.

According to the nice man at Poison Control we were OK, as long as we didn't vaccum the mercury up (which apparently a lot of people do).  Big mistake.  That causes the mercury to go airborne and get into your lungs.  Luckily there's a small amount of Mercury in those thermometers so breaking one isn't the end of the world.  We cleaned it as directed and ventilated for an hour.

And luckily, I didn't have to call Hazmat.