I just read an e-mail that alerted me to the fact that it’s National Lead Poisoning Prevention Week. I used to believe that lead poisoning only hit toddlers from inner city homes who ate paint chips as if they were potato chips.

Then I had kids of my own and learned the reality the hard way. Two of my children tested positive for elevated lead levels when they were toddlers. We didn’t live in the inner city and my kids never ate paint chips. But we do live in an older home and there is plenty of lead paint — it’s just not that obvious.

The culprit when Adam was a toddler — and a very oral one at that — was the windows. Every time we opened our very old windows, we created lead dust that settled on the floor, tables, windowsills and even the toys. Luckily, his levels never went into the “poisoning” zone and quickly came down after we made some changes. We purchased a vacuum  cleaner with a HEPA filter and eventually replaced all the windows in the house. Amazingly enough, the girls never tested positive for lead.

Then Jonah was born. Around the time he started crawling, we had the outside of the house painted. The painter at the time did a lot of scraping and sanding, and I didn’t give it much of a thought until I took Jonah in for his first year check up. His lead test came back elevated. Again, the levels came down within three months, but this time I got a call from the health department. The nurse wanted to inform me of the dangers of lead.

Neither of my boys showed any signs of being sickened by the lead exposure, but we will never know what and if there will be any long-term affects. There are no concrete answers when it comes to lead. I often wonder if that’s why Adam struggles with ADHD and other issues. We will never really know for sure.

So if you live in an older home, take the time to learn about lead. Here’s a good Web site to start with. And don’t wait until your kids are crawling around to make necessary changes to your home. You don’t want to be left wondering.