This saturday my son who is about 1 and half had a 夏祭り at his 保育園. Both parents as well as any extended family are allowed to attend and it goes for 1-2 hours in the morning. The kids show up and play some small games and collect stamps for a prize at the end. Seemed like fun, so my wife and I attended with our son.
A few activities in and everything was going well. We moved to another classroom for the 3rd activity. This was actually my son's main classroom so his teacher was there. They handed us cut off bottoms of milk cartons and said that our son could draw on them with markers and then when he is done they would provide some 'jelly' to put inside and it would be a natural bug repellent. I assumed it was some harmless non-toxic gel but looking back I should have trusted my instincts and asked if it was safe for kids to eat.
Once he was done drawing, the teacher came by and put the jelly inside the carton and gave him and myself a spoon and said we should mix it. Naturally, as kids do, he put the spoon in and eat a huge mouthful. The photographer who was standing by saw it happen and the look on his face told me this was not good. My wife called the teacher over and she kind of panicked. She said to take it out of his mouth. I said it's liquid it's gone nothing I can do. She went to get some sports drink and asked him to drink that while she got the head of the school. Meanwhile his actual homeroom teacher was just laughing saying "oh he really loves to eat hahaha"….
The head of the school shows up and I finally got the answer to what exactly this substance was. They were cutting open those ice packs that are used to keep food fresh. The ones that say don't open and don't ingest…. The head of school said we need to get him to a hospital and started frantically googling what happens if you eat this substance and what is in it. At this point I am like wtf is happening, how stupid can you be to first open these packs and use them not for their intended use and then to not even know ahead of time if they are safe for kids in the inevitable situation that one of them eats it or gets it in their eyes.
They call the hospital for us so they are expecting us. They kind of try and half ass apologise as we hurry out of the school. We arrive at the doctor, and he basically says as long as it wasn't an old one that used different chemicals he should be mostly fine. He said to go home and monitor him as it had already been 30 mins and he wasn't showing any symptoms. Thankfully he is fine now and he didn't appear to have any adverse symptoms but I am not going to pretend I wasn't scared.
My wife is beyond upset and was crying. The head of the school called her today to try and say sorry but at the same time hinting it was kind of our fault for not watching closely (wtf?!?!?). My wife basically told her that she doesn't feel comfortable leaving him in their care anymore and she can no longer trust them. The head said she understands and that she has to report it to the city tomorrow. My wife is going to go report as well just in case she is lying. She also wants to know what our options are since we both work and need someone to take care of him during the day. If the city can't provide a reasonable alternative we are thinking to simply enroll him in a private daycare down the street. We are already paying 90,000 a month for this public one so moving to a private one wouldn't break the bank.
Sorry for the long post. I am just really upset and wanted to rant somewhere and see if anyone else had similar experiences and if I am being reasonable here.
by SoRa333