Going Solo: In Which Nutmeg Avoids a Trip to the ER

DH being temporarily unavailable, I was stumbling around late last night trying to get my little peanuts to bed. The fact that it was late was my own fault. Action Man and I wanted to watch the Olympics, and the rest of the crew were threatening mutiny until I caved and set them up with The Incredibles upstairs in DH's laptop.

After folding laundry and herding Action Man upstairs to watch the rest of the movie, I jumped in the shower, proud of how well I was making use of my time.

The movie over, we are all in our pj's, and I am making the rounds.
"Action Man, will you please clean up those legos and brush your teeth?"
"Sports Fan do you see what time it is? Move it!"
"Yes, Little Dear, I'll come and say good night. Just a minute!"
"Littles Boo and Love, quit fooling around and stay. in. bed."

Then, suddenly, I hear it.
"Mo-o-om! Little Love needs you. She's crying!"

So, I go see her. Turns out she found a small piece of a leftover Tums on the shelf by her bed and stuck it up her nose.

Lovely.

Now, most Moms would think, "No big deal. She can just blow it out." And that really was my first thought. Until I remembered. Little Love is one out of two of my children (the other being Little Dear) who can not expel anything out of her mouth (or nose), except manymanymanymany words... and vomit.

No kidding.

Little Dear will walk around for days, literally, with a gargly voice, unable to cough it out. We all walk around, clearing our own throats, imploring her to have a good cough and get rid of it already...

And she will try. She throws her head back, takes a deep breath, and..... *gak*. That's the best she can do.

So, I take a deep breath, and bring Little Love to our bathroom and reach f or the tweezers. You know how they say never to stick tweezers up a child's nose? Because you'll just end up pushing the object farther up? Right. I learned that lesson last night.

Next up was the impromptu "how to blow your nose" lesson:
"OK, Little Love, take a deep breath... hold it... now blow out your nose. See? Feel how Mama blows air out her nose? OK, let me hold your mouth shut. Now, Blow! No no no. You were sniffing in. Now, sniff out. Please try again?"

Last resort. Have her suck the melting Tums up her nostril and down the back of her throat. I figured it was almost there anyway. So, I reversed instructions and told her to take a BI-I-IG sniff while I held her other nostril closed.

Little Love obliged, and the Tums came rocketing out across the room.

Happy Ending.

:)