Up his nose and around the corner

Yesterday afternoon the children and I were watching Swades together (a Bollywood movie about an expat (NRI) returning to India and falling in love (with his country and with a girl), based on a true story). Alexander was lying on the floor digging for treasure in his nose when he very responsibly hopped up and ran to find a tissue. Reminding my children to grab a tissue before they ultimately need one has been an ongoing battle in my life for the past thirteen years. 

I will take this time to out my childhood-self as a chronic booger-eater. My children mercifully have not developed such habits. Instead they just come to me with big ol' boogers on their fingers, saying, "Here, Mom! I got this out!" and I'm like, "I don't want that. Put it in a Kleenex!"

So I was pleased that instead of running to me with a big ol' booger on his finger, Alexander ran off to the tissue box and wiped his finger in the tissue. Then he started playing with the tissue a bit. He ripped off a small piece and said, "Look at this, Mom! I ripped off a small piece!"

And I said, "No! Don't rip that Kleenex up!"

He looked at me like I'd crushed his spirits a little (after all, look what he had done—pretty neat, right?) so I said, "Sorry, buddy, but I don't want little bits of tissue floating all over my house."

He was rolling his little bit of Kleenex between his fingers, making a nice little ball.

"Run and throw that in the garbage, please," I urged him.

"Oooooor..." he suggested, "I could...STICK IT UP MY NOSE!"

And before I could even react he had taken that little ball of Kleenex on the tip of his finger and rammed it as far up his nose as he possibly could.

"ALEX!" I yelled. 

Now, I'm sure having a bit of Kleenex up one's nose is not a medical emergency. Still, I wasn't sure that a tightly squeezed ball of tissue would easily work its way back out of his nose. If he had been older we could have prompted him to blow his nose, but he's two and he doesn't know how to blow his nose. So I told Andrew that he could fish it out. We managed to get it out with a Q-tip...and later when we looked up other methods of removing things from children's noses we learned that medical experts tend to say not to stick anything like a Q-tip up your child's nose, but we did...and I think everything turned out just fine...even though I missed the last few—and arguably some of the most poignant—minutes of Swades. 

We figured we ought to have that knowledge fresh on our mind with this child, our first to break a bone or think to himself "maybe I should stick this...UP MY NOSE!" 

This seems to be a fairly popular method for removing an object from a child's nose (in case you were wondering).

I told Andrew that he would have to tell Alexander not to stick Kleenex (or anything) up his nose and all the children laughed. Andrew couldn't figure out why everyone would laugh at that. It's because he sticks Kleenex up his nostrils when he has a runny nose (like this). Andrew didn't think that had any influence on Alexander's split-second decision to ram a ball of tissue up his nose, but I'm not so sure...