Of Boys and Beads and Buttons and .....Noses

I try really hard not to ever say things like "Boys will be boys!"  Or "He's all boy!"  And I have been known to scoff at people I overhear talking about their one and only child and how well he represents the most typical stereotype of a boy.  Their boy is so full of energy and never holds still and they wish so badly they had a nice, quiet, prim and proper little girl who would just sit quietly and draw or something....and I think well, I have a little girl I could show them who certainly isn't prim or proper and hasn't ever sat still for more than 30 seconds at a time or else that I have a little boy who is the sweetest, kindest soul ever and who is content to sit quietly for hours at a time reading a book....or even that drawing a picture is not always the quiet activity that some may imagine (trust me, I live with artists).

There is this one thing though that, for us, has been consistent with all our boys.  Not one of our girls has ever done this.  But... every single one of our boys has stuck various objects up their nose as a toddler.  I wish I had thought to collect the objects and display them in a frame as I once saw at an ENT's office, because it would be a colorful and varied display.

Rhys was the first offender, back when I was young and inexperienced and more easily panicked.  He came to me and confessed in a frightened whisper and with tears in his eyes, that he had a small gold safety pin up his nose and that it hurt.  When I questioned HOW he had got a safety pin up his nose he said "I put it there."   And when I then inquired why, he said "I don't know." And started to cry in earnest which effectively ended any possibility of me scolding him over this and instead I did the practical thing, squelched my panicky parent emotions, and retrieved the safety pin with a pair of tweezers.  Ta-da!  I didn't know then how routine similar scenarios would become in my life.

One afternoon, my children were entertaining themselves and their parents by bouncing on a bed and then jumping to the floor.  (Hey, don't knock it, you know it's fun.) Amik was littler than the rest, but participating nonetheless, and in one particularly good jump, apparently landed ever so slightly harder than he had previously and instantly dislodged a small white button from one nostril.  It literally shot from his nose.  "How long has that been up there?"  we wondered, a tad bit chagrined.

The preferred objects for stuffing up nostrils were definitely beads and buttons.  Amik actually took things to a new level and tried putting things in his ears too, an unfortunate choice as it nullified the nifty little trick I learned from another mother (of a little girl I might add, who had similar 'interests' as my boys did).  It turns out, if you plug up the nostril that doesn't currently house a bead or button or other small object, and then gently, but quickly blow in the kid's mouth, whatever is stuck up that nose will, usually, come shooting out.  Sort of like that button that Amik dislodged that day jumping on the bed.  Except sometimes, it won't.

When Liam was little, I spotted something up his nose.  Way up his nose.  It was white, and shiny, and maybe not really there, so I did nothing at first.  Then a couple days later I saw it again.  This time I actually took a flashlight and peered up the poor kid's nose and determined .....that there was definitely something up there.  That was all I could tell, seriously.  I used my tried and true 'blow it out' method, but all I did was cause my baby considerable alarm.  Kris tried tweezers, we held Liam down, but the unknown object seemed to actually repel tweezers, Kris could not get a grip for anything and Liam was miserable.  We let him go to sleep.  We waited until we were certain he was really, really out.  I turned him so his head was actually hanging off the bed.  And Kris, properly rested from his previous efforts, tried again.  And while Liam peacefully slumbered on, his Daddy successfully retrieved from the poor boy's nose a ...googly eye.  Yep.  True story.

I think that was probably the last such 'surgery' in our family.  And that googly eye would have made a fine addition to my framed 'objects extracted from noses (and occasionally ears)' display.  Up there with all those safety pins, beads and buttons, it really would have added some variety you know?  If only I had had the forethought on that first fateful day with little Rhys and got started on that bit of family history.

Same boys as above, young enough here that if you look closely you might just spot something  up someone's nose!