Parenting Fail

Well, so we thought.

So I'm a paranoid mom.  I'll be the first to admit it.  Especially when it comes to my kids' health.  Being a pediatric nurse will do that to you.  You see a lot of terrible things happen to other people's kids & the irrational part of your brain takes over and assumes that all of those terrible things will happen to *your* child, completely forgetting that the population you see is only a teeny tiny fraction of the number of kids running around.
Having said that though, I feel like I've gotten better at that part.  (ie, not assuming my child has leukemia every time he gets a nosebleed).  However, I am a little extra cautious.  I'll never be able to let that go.

One downside to moving so far away from everyone & everything we know is not only not being able to see those friends & family members as often but (selfishly) a lack of childcare.  It's not so easy to hand over the kids to Pa-Pa when you need a night out or, I don't know, knock down walls in a house built in 1860!  So all three kids, especially little Natalie who is not yet in school, get schlepped to the house quite often while Matt or both of us work.  It's either that or it doesn't get done.
BUT, that bothers me.  A. LOT.  I don't like the multitude of safety hazards that that situation poses for my kids, and the biggest one that has been in the forefront of my mind has been:

Lead Based Paint.

Growing up in a post-1970's neighborhood in St. Louis and living in equally if not more-so recently built homes in Kansas City, lead based paint was never a concern for us.  But this house is old as hell & has been neglected for at least as long ago as when the whole lead-based paint concern came to light.  So it worries me.  Granted, we're knocking down plaster from walls that have never been painted, only wallpapered (about a million times), but still.  It's flaking off of doors & it's on the baseboards & it's on the windowsills where we've been disturbing paint chips to install new windows...  It's enough to make this momma nuts. 

So out of pure precaution, I called our pediatrician and asked if we could test little Natalie.  I just wanted to be super sure that we weren't exposing her & doing everything right.  (Figuring she'd be the most at risk).  No problem.  Tiny finger prick & we were sent on our way.

Well I get a call from the nurse and that's never good.  She told me to call right away.

Me: "Hi, Nancy.  This is Stacia calling back.  How are you?"

Nurse: "A lot better than you're going to be!"

(insert Stacia's pure panic here).

She said Natalie's level came back at 27!  Twenty-flippin-seven!  @$#%^&*(!!  Anything over 5 is not okay.  Up to 45 & we're talking hospitalization for chelation therapy.  @#$%^%^&**!!!!  So she asked me to get a venous test just to be sure (first time was just a drop from her finger, this time will be from a traditional blood draw).  I asked for a level on all three kids so I can be certain they're all okay.  Sure.

Thursday, they all get their blood drawn.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, & Monday, Mommy is silently panicking that I've poisoned my children!

Well I got a call from the nurse this afternoon, and by some miracle all three of the kids came back less than 5!!!!  YAHOOOOOO!!!! :)  I'm so relieved I cannot begin to tell you guys.  I have no idea why the first one came back so high, but I'm so incredibly grateful they're all okay!

But we're not going to go back to letting them run around the house anymore.  I'm entirely too paranoid now.  It's going to make things a little slower, but no more Natalie going with daddy to the house while mom's at work.  No more mom & dad cleaning up together while the kids run & play.  Matt's going to have to go solo until it's all cleaned up and no longer a potential danger.  It sucks, but we've gotta do what we've gotta do.  We're tossing around the idea of looking for a mother's day out program maybe for Nataile too.  That way we'd have a few hours a week we could get more done.  I'm not sure.  Hopefully though we'll have it all taken care of soon & it will be a non-issue. Sigh.  This home renovation thing is tough.

(And PS: 3,200 page views at the time I'm typing this post!  Thanks for the love guys! :)  Leave me a comment once in a while so I can know who's reading.  I'd love to hear from you all too! :))