Josiah's latest experiment

“Boys will be boys.”

That’s how the saying goes. Well, this story involves a Lego, a little boy we all love and his little bitty nose =). It was a busy day around the Maricle house with preparing and cooking for company coming over in the afternoon and the kids had been a big help all morning by playing quietly and diligently together. Company arrived, we ate together, cleaned up after the meal in preparation for a short Chinese lesson, and all that without incident. And then, our little two year old came running from his room towards me, crying, but not hysterically yet, saying something about his nose.

“Lego in my nose, Mommy!!”

“What?! A Lego?! Which nostril?!”

“This one,” as he pointed to his left nostril.

In the panic of the moment, the only thing that came to my mind was to call Mrs. Laterza. While we do not have 911 here in China, we have someone just as reliable, our dear friend, Mrs. Laterza. She instructed me to gently put a q-tip into the other nostril to try to force him to sneeze. As I was doing that, she asked me if Josiah knew how to blow his nose. Why didn’t I think of that!!!?!! By this point, Josiah was crying hysterically and because your sinuses tend to swell when you are crying, it was constricting that Lego in his nose more, thus causing more pain which means more tears and screams!! He complied wonderfully and blew his nose right into my hand and out shot that infamous piece of Lego. It was so far in his nose that I could not see it lodged in there. After I had the Lego in my hand, my tears began to flow and Josiah was very apologetic. Later that evening, as we were putting away all the Legos, I showed him a few pieces and asked him if he wanted to put those pieces into his nose or ears. His response, “Nooooooooooo, Mommy!” =)