Noxious Weeds: 1 - Cole & Bennett: 0

Pretty, huh? This little bush is not as innocent as it seems.

We went to St. George over the Fourth of July weekend to visit Brian's side of the family. We stayed with his sister, Angie, and her family. Cole always has a blast there because he and his 6-year-old cousin, Bennett, adore each other. We hadn't been there more than five minutes before Cole and Bennett disappeared into the backyard. We were really enjoying the quiet and commented a few times on how nice it was to have a kid that's old enough to play with his cousin without constant supervision. It was great.

It was probably 45 minutes later that Jennie (another of Brian's sisters) and her family showed up. Jennie's husband, Jonathan, walked into the backyard with his kids and came back in a minute later with a piece of a plant and a seed pod in hand, asking if anyone knew what this plant was, because Cole and Bennett were apparently in the backyard, happily munching away on the seeds. See the picture on the right...this is pretty much what they looked like, but green instead of brown. They looked an awful lot like pea pods, so I couldn't blame the kids too much for thinking they were edible...

Anyway, Jonathan did some research online and we concluded that even if the seed pods were toxic, there was no way they could have ingested enough of them to be fatal. Phew! Off they went to bed, and we thought all was well.

Fast forward to about 11 p.m. that night when Angie walked past her kids' bedroom and thought she smelled vomit. Sure enough, she went in the bedroom to discover that Bennett had puked all over his bed. She came to tell me, concerned that Bennett had the stomach flu and that we were all exposed to the virus. Not five minutes later, I heard Cole coughing and throwing up in his bed. It only took a second for us to put two and two together. Sure enough, there were lots of little green seed-like pieces coming up.

I am a little ashamed (but only a little) to admit that I found the whole thing pretty amusing. For one thing, I was relieved that it wasn't a virus, so I didn't have to worry about Weston, not to mention Brian and me, getting sick as well. Also, I figured what we had here was a classic case of letting consequences do the teaching. I figure that they have both learned their lesson about eating unidentified plants! What we didn't expect was that the effect would be so lasting. I thought they'd probably throw up a few times, until their bellies were purged, and then they'd go to sleep and things would be mostly back to normal in the morning. Not so. The puking (or really, dry heaving) continued all night and well into the next day. Both boys were completely exhausted. They both slept for most of the day, waking up occasionally to beg for water and then throw it up. We watched them closely for dehydration, which thankfully didn't end up being a problem. During the course of their illness, when we were getting really concerned because they couldn't keep anything down, Dan took a sample of the leaves and pods to a local nursery to find out exactly what they were. The shrub is called a yellow bird of paradise (caesalpinia gillesii), and according to Poison Control, the seeds are classified as a "gastric irritant". Um, YEAH. We're just thankful they weren't truly poisonous.

But man, did it take them down!! It was a full two days before they were relatively back to normal.

(Note that Cole is wearing a diaper. Yep, it's exactly what you think. Thank goodness for Pull-Ups.)

As of the end of the weekend, Cole and Bennett are changed: a little older, and hopefully a lot wiser.