NOT the berries!

Today my kids decided to pick berries from the next door neighbor's yard while I was mowing the lawn. I noticed they were up to something and went over to see what they were doing, they had eaten some berries! I didn't know if it was poisonous or not but I knew from experience when I was a little girl, I ate some mushrooms in the yard and my mom gave my syrup of Ipecac to induce vomiting so I could rid myself of any poisons! There is also confliction on whether or not to induce vomiting. So I had to call the Poison Control Center (1-800-222-1222) to find out if my kid's would be okay! We then found out that they ate berries from a Pacific Yew which is poisonous only if they eat a handful of them and it's the seed in the berry that is actually poisonous. If you were to only swallow the seed and not chew it up you might have a chance of skipping out on the poisons. The guy who was helping me at the poison control center also sent me to a website that lists poisonous plants. I recommend to all my friends and family to post the telephone number of the Poison Control Center on their fridge and educate themselves on the potential harmful plants that are out there and teach their children about it so we can keep away from situations like mine experienced today! Vanessa and Chandler are okay since they didn't eat the seed of the berries instead they ate the red part and they had only one each, the guy who helped us followed up with us an hour later to make sure they didn't have any symptoms that could come from being poisoned: vomit and diarrhea. It's a scary thing to think that they are so close to something harmful but I am just glad that everything is okay!