PSA--button batteries are deadly

So... Had a raging fever and GI misery yesterday and husband was working until seven, so I was cooking dinner for the kiddos. My 11 month old son was playing in the low cabinet that we keep our paper plates, cups, straws, and plastic spoons, so that our daughter can get her own dishes for dinner.

I was standing facing that cabinet and the dining room, where my daughter was playing play doh. Leaned down for five seconds to pour the pancake batter into the griddle, look up and my son has a AA battery in his hand on the way to his mouth. I fly across the kitchen, pull the battery away, and then look in the cabinet and apparently our house cleaner must have taken our battery box from the (admittedly overflowing) upper cabinet and put it in the (spacious) lower cabinet, not realizing we had purposely removed all non "kid safe" stuff from that cabinet.

There were some little button batteries in the box, so I couldn't be sure that in all his rifling around in that cabinet while I was cooking, he hadnt swallowed one. I called my husband and learned that if a baby swallows a button battery, it can kill them within 2 hours of ingestion!!!!! So, he came home, took our son to the children's ER, got an x-ray and it turns out that he did not swallow any batteries.

I just about had a heart attack (the existing sickness did not help!) when I realized how serious that could have been. Maybe everyone in te world knows how deadly this is except me and has already taken all these precautions, but last night I put all our batteries in a plastic tub with a lid that cannot be easily taken off. And then the tub went into the garage where it could not so easily be "rearranged" to a kid-friendly location. We also put a strip of tape on the backs of remote controls and other appliances that our kids ocassionally mess around with.

Just passing this stupid parenting moment along in the hopes that someone else won't have to deal with all that panic and anxiety in the future!!