Up and Away

Last month I announced my partnership with OTC Safety.  As part of that partnership, every few weeks I'll be posting on how to use over the counter medicines safely, particularly with little ones running around.  And it's all quite timely, because June is National Safety Month, and in conjunction with that, the CDC and the PROTECT Initiative is launching the social media #MedsUpAway program, which is a campaign to encourage parents to keep their medicines up and away and out of kids' reach.

Don't think you need the advice?  Think you're on top of this?  I thought I was.  Until I took a closer look...

This is about to get embarrassing.

This past weekend, I took inventory of where we kept medicine in our house.  And here's what I found.

I kept it here:

That would be my bedside drawer.

And here:

That would be my husband's night stand.  

And here:

That would be under the sink, in the bathroom my kids bathe in!

And shamefully, even here:

That would be my son's dresser!

Why would you keep all these medications in these places, so easily accessible to, I don't know, the two CHILDREN living in your house? You may ask. Perhaps you don't have a medicine cabinet?  

Au contraire. We do have a medicine cabinet.  A spiffy new one we got a couple years ago during our bathroom renovation.  But it's been a bit neglected.  A bit haphazard.  It's been looking a little something like this:

Prescriptions on night stands, and toothpaste in the medicine cabinet?  Hmmm.

So, in honor of the #MedsUpAway program, on Sunday I did a major overhaul.  Major.

I threw away a ridiculous amount of medications.  I cleared our night stands, our drawers, our under the sink cabinets, our anything and everything to get any medicines or vitamins out of the potential reach of my kids. And it resulted in this:

Ahhhhhh, the organization.

But more than that, the safety.  It's really about time.

I really try to be safety conscious.  I am all about organic fruits and carseat weight limits and small, chokable legos laying around.  But in this department, I got lazy.  I got reliant on the safety seal and the fact that my kids aren't allowed in my bedroom and the fact that since they've never gotten into anything before, they probably never would.

Not smart.

It took me about 30 minutes to rearrange everything and make this beautiful masterpiece of a medicine cabinet.  That's really nothing, when considering the potential adverse consequences of my kids getting into my skittle looking ibuprofen container...

Where are your meds?  Really?  Do an inventory, and get them up and away!  And if you're so inclined, join the initiative and tweet or Instagram photos of your own safe medicine locations using #MedsUpAway!

Disclosure: I receive compensation for my participation in the CHPA educational foundation's OTC Safety Ambassador program.  However, the content and opinions in this post are my own.