I was trying to finish a scanning project (ALL of my mother's family pictures from 18__ to present) when Bryn came running over to me crying.
"I can't get it out! How can I get it out?!!" She kept repeating while shoving her finger in her nose.
"What, Bryn? What? A booger? Is it just a booger?" I asked hopefully.
No response. I grabbed her hand so she wouldn't keep pushing it in her nose.
"Is it a booger?" I ask again. Nothing. Then quietly, "Is is a toy?"
"Yes," she said, her little pouty lips melting into a sad pathetic face.
So I scooped her up and set her on the kitchen table so I could look inside her nose. A tiny plastic pellet, meant as food for Barbie's horse, is in her right nostril. Bryn kept sniffling hard to get rid of the discomfort and I worried she would suck the pellet past my sight and it would become lodged in her brain.
So I again scoop her up and take her upstairs to my bedroom and I got some tweezers from my bathroom. Bryn is being extremely calm and patient. Looking in her nose, I can distinctly see the pellet; it is directly behind the protruding thingy that is there to prevent objects, like fingers and pellets, from going upwards any further. The problem is, that every time I get the tweezers close (and that took a while, I didn't like sticking those up there) the pellet slid back a little more. And I wasn't even sure the tweezers were open far enough to grasp the width of it.
I was afraid I was doing more harm than good. Emergency Room? Dr's Office? I mentally went through the list.
"Bryn?" I said. "Do you know what we need to do? We need to pray."
So I took her little face in my hands and we leaned together with our foreheads touching and I prayed that the toy would come out of her nose and that Mommy would know what to do.
Bryn started wiping her nose because it began running. This is good, I thought, maybe the pellet will slide out on it's own.
And with me stretching the skin by the outside of her nose out and up to make way for the pellet to slide past the protruding thingy, the pellet did indeed slide out by itself.
Then I said "Bryn? We need to say a thank you prayer." And we did. And then I had Bryn repeat after me all the places we do not put toys (nose, eyes, mouth, ears).
And then I took pictures.
