The one where I give my kid Reese's Pieces and almost kill him. Yeah, that one.

We had a slight peanut butter incident last year - where I tried to give him some on a graham cracker, and he proceeded to freak out and then get some on his hand and then rub his eye, and then his whole face ballooned up and his eye got infected. I was told way back then to lay off the peanut butter until he was 3 years old.

Pshaw.

I've always been one to not follow directions or instructions when I felt they didn't make a lick of sense. Yeah, it doesn't always work out for me, but I'm still alive, so I at least have that going for me.

Mateo doesn't really care for candy, nor have we really given him any candy, but, as I mentioned previously, he does enjoy a glazed donut hole or two or three or four as well as 'i cream.' So he has a sweet tooth in there somewhere. As I was shopping for Easter basket goodies, which was going to be mainly toys and books and nothing edible, I thought: Hmmm... M&Ms would be good; If anything, we could eat them. And then I saw the egg-shaped Reese's Pieces and thought, well....he is over two....and my husband does love them....and figured it was okay to buy them and try them out.

Now, my husband and I both don't have nut allergies nor does anyone in our family as far as we know. It's just peanut butter, for poopsake. I figured trying it wasn't going to hurt anyone.

As you can tell, this is where the story goes terribly bad.

Mateo and I were hanging out, playing with play-doh while my husband was at the gym. That's when I got the brilliant idea to open the bag of Reese's Pieces and give one to Mateo to see how he liked it. I had to bite it in half since it has a hard candy shell was was bigger than the normal size. He chewed it, said, "MMmmmmm....," and asked for more. I gave him three half pieces in all. For some reason I told myself that was all he should get even though I knew he liked it. I'm not going to say it's mother's intuition or anything, but I just didn't want him to have any more.

Fast-forward 10 to 15 minutes, and we were in his room, playing with random toys and coloring when he started to complain about his stomach hurting. He has really never made it apparent that his stomach hurts until then, so I was worried, and yes, I suspected the peanut butter, but at the same time, I have never heard of someone with a peanut allergy having a stomach ache. Actually, I've never known anyone with a peanut allergy.

After that, we spent some time watching TV. My husband came home from the gym and began getting ready to go out for the evening. That's when Mateo went from no cough to coughing like he was in the midst of a bad cold.

I gave him his asthma medicine thinking he was having an asthma attack. That didn't work. Then he started scratching at his neck and head. My husband asked if I thought it was the Reese's Pieces and should he stay home, and I was so freaked out about the whole thing I said no, it's not from the Reese's Pieces (even though, at that time, I figured it was) and no, I don't want you to stay home. I think I was feeling like since I did this to Mateo, I should be the one to fix it.

Mateo then went from goofy kid with a cough and an itch to miserable kid who was obviously suffering, and I was already on the phone with Kaiser (And, by the way, Kaiser? When I need to talk to someone immediately, I should not be forced to listen to the what seems like five minutes of pre-recorded nonsense, and yes, I know you say to hang up and call 911 in an emergency, but sometimes, sometimes we moms don't want to believe that an emergency is happening and don't want to call 911 and then see their kids whisked away in an ambulance. Because that means we really screwed up.). The nurse said to bring him into the ER. NOW.

Of course the ride to the ER, which should take all of 10 minutes, if that, felt like an eternity, and it was only during the car ride that I was truly, truly frightened for my boy's life.

He was seen right away, was given Benadryl and prednisone and two nebulizer treatments, and then sent on his merry way. When he woke up Sunday morning, no one would have been able to tell what that poor boy when through the night before.

Next week he's seeing an allergy specialist because I need to know what he's allergic too, and if it is more than one thing. I feel bad putting him through whatever he'll be going through (that's if the doctor deems it necessary, I suppose), but I also don't want him to go through that again.

Mom guilt seems to get worse and worse for me. Perhaps there should be classes all about the joys of mom guilt to go with how to swaddle a baby and this is how your pelvis will naturally open up wider. Oh yeah, but I do have that whole not listening to instructions thing....