How Foxglove almost stopped my heart

Evan at the Colonial Garden in Williamsburg

When I chose to name this blog "Picnics & Panic Attacks" I had a particular recent incident in mind.  Let me preface by explaining that our baby, like most babies, puts EVERYTHING in his mouth.  Mouthing objects is his way of exploring the world sensorially.  As picky as he might be at mealtime, he is quite the omnivore when he encounters a dirty rock on the playground.  This innocent desire to taste the world is often the cause of severe anxiety for me and his father. 

Foxglove

Last week my family went to the Outer Banks for a vacation, and on the way back home we decided to stop briefly in Williamsburg, VA for lunch.  While there we checked out the Colonial Garden, which, along with exhibiting plants the settlers would have used, also sells some common herbs.  We decided to purchase one of those herbs, a "chocolate" mint plant.  Our son sat safely (or so it seemed) in his stroller in front of the cash register as we paid for our purchase.  We were chatting with the woman dressed in colonial garb about mint varietals when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Evan about to chomp into a flower blossom.  He had picked a flower from a Foxglove (aka Digitalis) plant that was in a pot on the ground in front of the register table.  Until that moment the plant had escaped my notice, but luckily I knew what Foxglove was and acted with motherhood-inspired superspeed quickly enough to interrupt his deadly appetizer.  The entire plant is toxic and is used to create digoxin, a heart medication used to slow the heart.  Too much of this toxin can actually cause the heart to stop - a deadly amount can come from just a small bite of one of the leaves on the upper stem.  This particular foxglove plant almost stopped my heart indirectly, and had my husband and I panicked for about an hour that Evan might have eaten some of the plant before we noticed anything.  Why the Colonial Garden would chose to place a known toxin on the floor near the cash register, where many children are likely to be parked while their parents pay, is beyond me.

Hence the latter part of my blog's title ("Picnics & Panic Attacks").  Parenthood is for thrill-seekers.  I won't lie and say that it's cheaper than jumping out of an airplane or climbing Everest, but it is certainly more spontaneously terrifying.