Diet Dr. Pepper. Not so good...

For two year olds, that is. It all started when I was doing my friend Jen's hair. She knows of my insane love and "need" for Diet Dr. Pepper and actually shares a similar love affair with Diet Coke. As a friendly gesture she brought me a 44 oz DDP (as I affectionately like to refer to it). Now, a 44 oz drink is rather large and I was just getting started with her hair so I'm thinking it will last me through the duration, and then some. Well, I took a healthy sip and then set the cup on the table. About a half hour later I went to refresh myself and the cup was nowhere to be found. Hmm, I thought. "I could swear I put it right here", I said. Just then I glance into the living room to see none other but the 'sneaky' David sitting on the couch with an all but empty 44 oz cup. Oh, yes. All gone except the last 7% (backwash). Ok, so really there was like an inch or two left on the bottom but that was probably just melt-off from the ice! "Oh my gosh!" I said to David. "Doesn't your belly feel sick?" I asked. He replied with a perky "No!" I stood there in disbelief. Even I would feel sick after drinking all of that. The day went on, I finished Jen's hair and that evening Mel and Grayson came over to visit. Right away Mel noticed David was quite 'excitable', if you will. Laughing and jumping and running! At first I thought he just had lots of energy since he'd been cooped up most of the day but once I watched him closely I agreed; this was the effects of some serious caffeine. Since he didn't have a nap that day I expected him to go to bed pretty easily. He did- sort of. He went to bed but woke up after one hour because he heard some beeps. I hadn't heard anything so I told him it was a car outside. I got him back to bed and he woke up again a little later telling me there was an egg on the floor in his bedroom. What? I had no idea what he was talking about and I just figured he'd had a weird dream. By now I'm realizing he obviously wasn't sleeping well. He looked rather bright-eyed considering he hadn't had a nap. I decided to let him stay up until he felt sleepy. This was at 10:30ish. At midnight (after 2 movies and 2 snacks) I started feeling freaked out. When the heck was he going to crash? I know some adults can't even tolerate caffeine(I just don't happen to be one of them!) so the more and more I thought about it the more I began to worry that he really wasn't feeling well. Then I started to wonder if it could be more dangerous than I thought...so I called poison control! I felt a little silly but I really was concerned and just wanted some peace of mind. Turns out he didn't even come close to consuming a dangerous amount and the lady said he would just be restless until it was completely out of his system. Well, finally at 1:30am I decided he was tired! I was changing his diaper for bed when all of a sudden he started getting all upset about a hat on the ceiling and he kept saying it was going to fall!! Wow! To this day I have no idea what that was all about but it was really scaring him so needless to say, I slept in David's bed and he slept in mine with Jason. We all fell into a peaceful slumber at about 2am. FINALLY!
So, everything ended up fine-thank goodness. The next day he was back to himself, although, he still talks about the hat on the ceiling. He's actually been quite sensitive to scary things and certain noises the last few weeks. His little cousin who is just a bit older has been going through the same thing, so I'm thinking it's just a phase. A phase that was aggravated by caffeine and lack of sleep causing partial hallucination? Yikes. As far as the DDP issue is concerned, I'm much more aware of where I set the cup and David doesn't get so much of a sip these days. He hasn't hardly even asked and when he does I just say "No, It makes you feel yucky, remember?" Then he asks for Milk. That's more like it!