Play Foam - Warning!

Alright. My son just had his 3rd birthday in October and I was looking for educational toys for him since all anyone ever gets him are cars and trucks! I found Play Foam online and thought it looked like fun! It said ages 3 and up, great! He already loved Playdoh and this looked like a funner version of that. He opened it up and immediately wanted to play with it. We had a blast with this product and had no issues...until a few days ago.

I am a stay at home mom, so when I have to use the bathroom, I have to leave my three year old and nine month old alone for the 1 minute I take to do my business. On Monday I went to the bathroom and in that span of about 1 minute, my son had found the Play Foam and proceeded to CRAM it up his nose and fill his mouth full of it.

For those of you who don't know what Play Foam is, it is tiny balls of Styrofoam material mixed with something that makes it all stick together.

So yes, I walk out of the bathroom to him freaking out and spitting Play Foam all over the house. I immediately took him in the kitchen, dug what I could out of his nose and then made him blow his nose, HARD! He did. Play Foam went everywhere. It took him blowing his nose about 7 or 8 times to get it all out and each time huge globs came out. I kept thinking, "where is all this foam coming from!?" He finally, after the last nose blowing session, said he felt better and ran off to play. I collapsed into a pile on the floor. A few minutes later he sneezed and nothing came out so I felt confident he was ok.

Later that night I couldn't sleep because I was afraid he has aspirated some of the balls(I was just being paranoid), and so I snuck into his room with my Stethoscope and listened to his lungs like a paranoid mom! He was fine.

The next day my 9 month old pooped out a huge pile of these balls!! When I checked her there were none in her hands or mouth. I plopped her in her high chair so I could help him and never thought twice about it. Yah, well, somehow in that 1 minute it took for me to pee, she ate some too!

Someday I will look back on this and laugh. The Play Foam is now in the trash.