The other day I was on the phone when I realized that my 2 year old Ethan was being too quiet.  It had only been a few minutes but I could tell that trouble was afoot.  I went upstairs to find him sitting in the sink with his hand in a bottle of children's Flintstone vitamins.  Vitamins that had a "childproof" cap.  Clearly they were not "childproof" for my child. 

Because we were unsure how many he ate (and the vitamins contained iron), we were off to the emergency room to have his stomach pumped.  Five and a half hours later, we all got to come home.  We learned lots of lessons that day.

• Never trust "childproof."  Some children are just going to have the dexterity to open bottles that they shouldn't be able to open.  I hadn't been worried before because I had such a dificult time trying to open the bottle so I never assumed that he would be able to do it.  There are no more assumptions from me. 
  
• No place is a safe place for pills and vitamins unless it is impossible for your children to access them.  Putting pills up high is not necessarily a foolproof solution to protect your child.  Ethan was able to scale the cabinet and get his vitamins out.  There were no other pills in the cabinet and we weren't worried.  Now we have moved any and all medication into a closet that has a lock AND a latch that completely out of his reach, even if he were to stand on a chair or other piece of furniture. 
  
• Never call any medication "candy."  While we never referred to Ethan's vitamins as "candy," they tasted good and he always referred to them as such.  We tried to reiterate that they were "danger" but he didn't really understand.  This was a bit of the downside to never giving your child candy.  When he got his hands on the vitamins, he was eating them as fast as he could because they tasted good.
  

Just a few lessons we learned the hard way that maybe can help you steer clear of the mistakes we made.  It was a horrible day and I'm so glad it turned out OK.