The Great Nose Apple Incident of 2008

First, if you’re family and checking in to see what the girls wore on Easter, I’m sorry. Not as sorry as I was when Robert, E. and I were throwing up violently all of Easter weekend, but sorry nonetheless. I feel like our greenish tinge and old pajamas make us look less than celebratory. Maybe next week, I’ll be able to post some cute pictures of the girls in their Easter attire, because we’ll be celebrating with them next weekend. (L just felt bad all weekend, but her body appeared willing to accept at least some food).

Anyway, we had a family incident last night. Rob was sitting with the girls at the table, talking with them while they ate (he and I are both feeling better, but not so much like eating). I was cleaning in the living room when I heard him say “Oh, E, don’t put that apple in your nose.” Naturally, I looked up in time to see E, who had been, apparently, rubbing a piece of apple against her nose, decide that “Yes! What a good idea, Daddy! I will, in fact, stick this fingertip sized chunk of apple up my nose!” I was also watching 30 seconds later when she realized that the sensation of apple in one’s nose is not necessarily as pleasant as she had initially imagined. When she began her hysterical crying, Rob and I both rushed over and attempted to extract the offending fruit, but this caused E to cry harder and snort the apple further up into her nose. L continued to calmly eat while keeping her eyes glued to the scene unfolding before her. You could tell she totally thought it was better than the Baby Einstein videos they get to watch in the car. I got E calmed down and we did what we always do when we have a medical question about one of our daughters- we called Rob’s dad. God bless my father-in-law, who always refrains from rolling his eyes and mentioning that if he had known about the sort of issues his grown children would be calling about when they had children, he might have done another fellowship in pediatric ear, nose and throat, because his orthopedic and hand fellowships were a little vague on the exact steps one takes when a toddler snorts something up her nose. He was, as always, gracious to us when he suggested watchful waiting and seeing how E. felt. Which just then, was, as near as we could tell as she was turning the volume on our stereo system way, way up, completely fine.

About half and hour after we put her down, she began calling “Uh-oh, Mama! Uh-oh!” which is my usual cue that a.) Donkey has fallen out of the crib as he mysteriously does from time to time or b.) the barrette we use to hold her hair out of her eyes while she sleeps has come out. But when I went in, she pointed at the nose and said “Nose apple, Mama,” in a sad little voice. So I brought her back out into the living room and Rob got out the otoscope his dad had left at our house in one of his previous home visits as our personal ENT. E was initially pretty excited, because she loves what the girls’ favorite pediatrician at their new practice calls the “ear looker.” And she was even game when her dad used it to look up her nose. However, when he spotted the apple and got out the tweezers and attempted to remove it, things turned ugly. She was crying, I was crying. Several calm downs and repeated failed attempts at apple extraction later, she eventually snorted the apple far enough back that we could no longer see it and immediately fell into an exhausted slumber, vowing never to tell Mommy if nose apple was troubling her again. Another call to Rob’s dad confirmed that probably the apple would dissolve on its own and unless E seemed in pain or to have an infection, he would not be overly concerned. Not overly concerned, but I would guess thinking about how he might change his phone number or require his sons to begin calling him only during normal business hours unless they actually needed him to examine a possible broken bone.

There was no evidence of the nose apple this morning and E didn’t say anything about it when she got up. I assumed, even, that she didn’t remember. But when she woke up early from her nap this afternoon (unusual, because L usually gets up first), and we were cuddling on the couch, she looked up at me and said sadly, “Mama, Daddy bite nose. Daddy bite nose.” Not thinking, I laughed and asked, “When did Daddy bite your nose, sweetie?” It hit me as I was telling Rob about it later, that your dad putting tweezers in your nostril probably feels a little like a bite (not to be critical of Robert’s surgical technique or anything). So we had a good laugh about how what E is probably telling church nursery workers about what goes on in our house and what they must think of us. Here's a picture of E a few months ago wearing my nursing cover, currently in use by my sister, as a toga and another of E and the much talked about "Donkey." Who may look much like Eeyore to many of you. You will notice one of E's violent preferences in this picture: when her dad is wearing athletic socks, which now that he's professor-ing, he pretty much only does on weekends, E likes to make him put a pair on her also, which I think gives her a cool 80's toddler in leg warmers look.