Nose Mining, A Family Legacy

It was bedtime. In fact, it was past bedtime--9:25. The Little One (we'll call "LO", the 20 month old) and The Middle One (our 1st grader, we'll call "MO") were upstairs in their freshly fluffed bedroom of pink & lavender floweryness. It was quiet up there except for the Lion King playing in the background at a moderate level. I was winding up a quick chat online with Ricky, who will be flying back from Austin today, when the Little One shredded the calm with a Brillo-Pad to the teeth shriek of pain. The Big One (we'll call "BO", our 8th grader) and I startle and soon, the three of us were the Marx Brothers around The Little One.

"She keeps jamming her finger in her nose! Mommy, I think she put a green bead up there! I think I saw one on the floor and now it's not there anymore." The Middle One reports.

Helpful.

The Little One continues to squall and like freight train cars, the girls follow me to my bedroom where I try to investigate.

Sure enough, waaaay up the left nostril the faceted green bead glints. It's too far to reach and she's sniffing UP in between yowls. The Big One tries to console her, The Middle One begins trying to reason with her, "Don't sniff!! Don't sniff!! You're gonna make it go into the top of yer head!"

"Honey, she doesn't understand--it's ok, we'll get it out." I interject. The Little One darts her pointy finger all around trying to get it up her nose while I do my best to block. My mind's rolodexing solutions. The nose syringe? Can't locate, won't work. Press the side of her nose, work it down? WOW! No, ok, that's hurting her. Hey, okay, blow in one nose hole, cover her mouth! Yeah, do that. Doh! More screaming nothing budged. Don't cry, the kids are watching.

"Okay Guys, we have to get her to the doctor, Mom can't get it out. Hey, BO, grab her a pair of pants, hurry--and MO, get some clothes on, K? OH, GAWD! She's really poopy! Hey, BO grab me a diaper too, I have the wipes." Everyone steps to it. The baby starts to calm down. Good. We load up into the van and make quick tracks to the ER. I call Ricky and give him the heads up and put him to the task of calling the ER to let them know I'm en route (thing is, I'm also a little worried she'll snort the bead to the top of her head).

Two thumbs up for the ER. We were in within minutes. Three grown people restrained LO. The doctor, a woman in her 30's, went up after it with long tweezers. If you didn't know better you'd think a Pterodactylus was being slaughtered in there. No dice.

Next, suction. Nothing but snot and all the screams of outrage LO could muster.

The doctor abandoned the suction as quickly as she'd snatched it down and went back for the tweezers, stretched LO's little nose hole a little and went after it. It grabbed, bead slipped. The girls and I winced in unison at the tiny crunch sound of the bead escaping the tweezer's pinch. Crunch. Again. It grabbed, pullllllll-crunch.

In again. Little snap.

Another dive. She's got it, she's got it, she's got it---pullllll

Ploomp! The green offender glistened innocently in the mouth of the tweezers. A little bloody nose and LO--well, she was very offended by it all.

I claim full responsibility for the nose mining DNA contribution. I was a gravel up the nose kid.

What's ever been in your nose?