Morning Not-so-glories

Did you know that Morning Glories are toxic? Well, I'd heard that a good majority of plants and flowers can be toxic/poisonous in some way or another. But generally if you don't eat them, you'll be fine. So one of the things that Alex and Abby love to do is gather fun little things into piles outside when they are playing. They especially love to gather the pods of trees that drop into the yard and de-seed them. Today, they discovered that we have a whole fence lined with seed filled pods of our dormant Morning Glory that just happened to be growing here since before we moved in. And naturally with toddlers, their little hands will pick up just about anything when you turn away for that three seconds to sneeze. But then Abby busted open one of the pods. Needless to say, curiosity got the better of her and pop went the pod, into her mouth. She spit them out immediately saying, "yucky!" all the time. And I also did my best to remove any that she couldn't manage to get out. So we went right in the house and I looked up Morning Glory. Apparently the seeds can have the same reaction as LSD if you ingest them. I guess it's a big thing with people who want to get a cheap high. (Sheesh! Give me a break.) I promptly called Poison Control and the friendly lady on the other line told me that she will be fine. I guess it is only dangerous if you ingest hundreds of them. Good to know. So right now I'm considering if I want to kill all of the beautiful morning glory or not. I think I have to get the permission from my neighbor because it is all growing from her side of the fence. Go figure. Ugh...I always tell myself I'd love to have a house plant again, but seeing as how I have two toddlers and five cats, I think I'll just stick with the fake ones. So just an FYI: If you have kids, and want to have the beauty of Morning glories...reconsider your options. Sheesh. Morning Glory. Who knew?