Last night my little guy drank an entire bottle of almond extract. As I spoke with the nicest guy from Poison Control (1-800-222-1222, http://www.poison.org/actFast/1800.asp) I kept wondering how I hadn't noticed how much alcohol those little bottles have. The one my son drank was 53% alcohol for the 1oz bottle. I was in shock. Not that we are extremely conservative but we don't drink (we have 4 kids no time for drinking!). So I had never thought of alcohol in the home as being a problem. But holy smokes 53% alcohol content in 1oz. Isn't that more than a shot of alcohol?
Luckily for us one bottle isn't enough for alcohol poisoning. It is enough that we had to worry about a drop in blood sugar so kool aid drinking was a free for all last night. Than there was the erratic behavior last night caused no doubt from the alcohol until he went from awake to asleep. I am talking weird behavior. The poor guy at one point stood on the back of a computer chair on one leg. I am glad he is coordinated but my husband and I were worried that before he passed out he was going to seriously injure himself. Than I had to check him every 30 minutes while he was asleep to make sure that he was responsive. Today I went through my cupboards and moved spices to a top shelf on a book shelf and went ahead and got rid of the vanilla extract too. After all if he would drink almond extract who knows what else he might try to eat or drink.
Thought this might be a good warning to check out your baking goods too. We thought we were good since we have child safety gadgets, clean w vinegar and baking soda, have laundry detergent up high, etc. Nope almond extract got us. I am sill in shock over the 53% alcohol content and what a 4yo is willing to drink. He told me it smelled awful and tasted yucky but he wanted to drink it anyway because it was by the cookie decorations. I don't remember ever seeing this particular warning in any of the baby or toddler books that I have read either. Hope this helps so no one else has to go through this type of night!
Last night I added a few too many drops of Tesco almond extract to my coffee - I add one or two drops sometimes, to give flavour, but poured in a bit too much last night, maybe 10-15 drops. I thought it would make no difference. Ten minutes after drinking I started to feel sick. An hour later I was vomiting all night with stomach cramps. Seriously unpleasant. I don't have any allergies or anything. This stuff is more serious than people know.
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