1 Mother 2 Another

So Cora, Maddie and I were driving home
from preschool pick-up on Friday and all was quiet in the car until
Cora said, “Hey, Mommy, I’ve got that green thing stuck
up my nose.”


Excuse me, what??

Cora had found a small green crafting bead
at the school on the floor – some leftover of a project
– and picked it up excitedly, showing me her
“treasure”. She often finds things, and I’ve said
repeatedly not to put them in her mouth.


I have, however, failed to tell her not to put them in her nose.


I knew the size of the thing, and knew there was no way it could
get stuck in her nose – it was too small for that. It could,
however, travel so far up her sinus passage I could never retrieve
it, and stay there until she inhaled it into her lungs and had to
be rushed to emergency surgery and have it surgically removed,
probably costing her a lobe from her lungs in the process.


Not that this was flashing through my head at the time.


“Ok, um, well, just leave it there honey – I SAID LEAVE
IT THERE AND DON’T TOUCH!” I screamed at her as I
stared into the rearview mirror – I’d caught a glimpse
of her chubby finger pointing north up that nostril again, probably
shoving the thing even further away. Chastened, she dropped her
hand into her lap.


For the remainder of the four-minute drive I alternated between
staring in the mirror, making her swear to NEVER EVER put something
else up her nose, reassuring her that Mommy still loves her, and
berating myself for not having preemptively issued a moratorium on
objects up the nose. As we neared the house, I told both girls that
neither one of them was allowed out of their car seat until
Cora’s nose was green-bead-free, and if Mommy couldn’t
get it out fast we were going straight to the walk-in clinic,
naptime be damned.


Fortunately for me (and Cora, and my pocketbook) I’ve got
long fingernails, and I was able to carefully lasso it in and get
the thing out, and we all got out of our car seats without further
incident. On the bright side, Cora’s shown no other
inclinations to shove foreign bodies up her nose – she takes
her promise to me seriously, and for that I am grateful.


On the down side, there’s no predicting what will be next.
But something will be.