You have a what stuck where?

The big news at our house is that Scott got a new job. He started Monday. Yay!!! But I’ll write more about that in another post. I’m here now to tell you about what happened at home while Scott was busy at his first day of work.

I was folding laundry or eating bon-bons or whatever it is we stay-at-home moms do all day when Amanda came running to me crying, saying that Alyssa had crammed a rock up her nose. Way up her nose. Amanda's nose, that is. She was crying hysterically and I was thinking great, Scott's gone one day and I'm gonna have to go to the emergency room.

Well not that we'd actually have to go to the emergency room, being a weekday and all, I guess our pediatrician could have gotten us in but I wasn't thinking logically... because I was in high-drama mode and trying to determine if a rock crammed up your nose constitutes an emergency. I mean the daughter of a friend had a bean stuck up her nose for ages. And aside from bad breath and some nasty drainage she was just fine. But back to Amanda, this was no bean, it was a rock and if she sucked in too hard it might go flying and smack the side of her brain or something. There was some speculation about how big the rock was and did she really just stand there helplessly while Alyssa slowly took aim and jammed the thing as far as she could up her nose?

So anyway, mostly I was just trying to remain calm and keep her calm because that's what good parents are supposed to do right? Besides, when she cried, she did that snot-sucking thing that was just a brain-injury waiting to happen. So of course I tried to get her to blow it out. She tried and tried but it just would not come out. Oh and it turns out this wasn't just any rock; it was Rilie's rock. Rilie is her new best friend next door. And every single time Rilie leaves one of her toys here something bad happens to it, so this just added to Amanda's trauma.

Eventually we located a flashlight and I'm happy to report that I could see the rock... and like an idiot I said, “No biggie, I'll just pull it out with tweezers.” From her reaction I could tell I might as well have said, "I'll just go get a really big knife and... " At our house, Splinter + Scott + Tweezers = Scary. She started doing that really hysterical cry again and as I'm trying to soothe her, Alyssa walks up and just smacks Amanda in the head. You've seen those movies where some lady is hysterical and then someone slaps them across the face and suddenly they're fine? Well I now know that it works. Amanda stopped crying for long enough to get really ticked off and yell. "Alyssa hit me!!! She HIT ME... "

So anyway, before trying the tweezers, I googled the problem... can't remember exactly what words I used but it took a few tries: “object stuck in nose,” “item jammed in nostril,” “how to remove rock from nasal cavity,” before I came up with something called the KISS technique... in which I would hold closed the nostril that did not hold the foreign object and blow into Amanda’s mouth and hopefully that would create enough pressure to push the rock out.

This made me laugh because I once dated a guy who actually used this as a kissing technique. Clearly he'd gotten some misinformation. Probably read some medical journal on the KISS technique and got badly confused.

Just picturing the whole scenario got me laughing and as I tried to explain it to Amanda she started laughing and would go back and forth between laughing and crying. She's at the age where she understands the power of an injury and knows enough to milk it until she gets cookies or ice cream or something. So she knew she must continue to cry but I couldn't stop laughing and that made her laugh and eventually Amanda laughed so hard the rock shot right out of her nose.

Of course that was a huge relief. But then I had this rock. This smooth tan rock... bigger than a pea, smaller than El Capitan... and after washing it I set it aside and tried to determine what I was supposed to do with it, you know, after showing it to Scott. It seemed like one of those weird things I was supposed to keep. And for a moment I imagined us in one of those sappy Hallmark commercial kind of moments with Amanda at around age 13 rummaging through my jewelry box and saying, "Mom what's all this stuff?" And me saying with a dreamy faraway look on my face, “Oh, Sweetie, those are your baby teeth and a lock of your hair and that's your appendix, and ewww I have no idea what that thing is, but that's the rock your sister crammed up your nose when you were four. Gosh it seems like it was just yesterday..." Then music would come out of nowhere and we'd hug.

So I'm sure you can imagine how upset I was when Rilie came over and announced she wanted her rock back. “Really? Do you know where that thing has been? It was UP HER NOSE. Ick... Eww. You don't really want it, do you?” She said, "I can wash it." Fine then. Take your icky rock.

Oh and later I said to Amanda, "So tell me the truth, did Alyssa put that rock in your nose or did you?" She started laughing and said, "I did. I was just being silly." I said, "Yeah, I figured." She asked, “How did you know?” and I said, "Well umm... when I was around your age I stuck a nickel up my nose. And I'm pretty sure I blamed it on my brother."

I figured that would be our little secret but of course now she's telling everyone that "Me and Mommy put stuff up our noses." So two can play at that game and that’s why I’m telling you this little story. It’s true: me and Amanda put stuff up our noses. It’s one of those you have to try, but only once. At least that's what I thought until I asked Amanda to pose for the picture above and she asked, "Do you want me to put it back in my nose?"