Adventures with Andrew

I left on time but was still 15 minutes late on January 10th because of Andrew.

In the van on the way to drop off the older kids, Andrew started crying about a mile from school. Catherine told me that he stuck a Cheerio in his nose. I didn't believe it until Andrew, himself, told me that he put a Cheerio in his nose. I told Andrew that I would try to get it out when I got to school and if I couldn't get it out I would have to take him to the doctor.
Over the next mile (which seemed like it took an hour), I kept thinking that I was going to be one of those mothers who brought their kids to the doctor to have a foreign object removed from their nose. I had no idea how I would get it out. The only ideas I had were to use tweezers or a pencil.

I drove to school and parked. The older kids went into school and I looked around the front seat for something to help get the Cheerio out. I found tissues and a spoon. I don't know what I was thinking about doing with the spoon.

I climbed into the back seat try to get out the Cheerio.

I couldn't see the Cheerio at first but he said it was there. He sneezed a few times but it didn't come out. I was able to see the Cheerio for a second - it was pretty high up in his nose. I tried to get him to blow his nose but he kept blowing out his mouth (he isn't even 3 years old). I massaged the side of his nose to try to move the Cherrio down but nothing happened.

He sneezed a few more times and he tried blowing his nose several more times with no luck. After a few minutes, I told him that I would have to drive to day care and see if they had something to help get out the Cheerio and if not, then I would have to take him to the doctor.

I told him to blow his nose one more time and it came out - trumpets sounded (at least in my head). It was disgusting - a Cheerio covered in snot. Isadora asked to see it several times and was mad when I wouldn't let her see it.

Andrew asked to have the rest of his Cheerios back and I asked him if he was going to eat them or stick them up his nose. He said he would eat them and he would not put Cheerios in his nose again.

The rest of the ride to day care involved me reminding Andrew not to stick things in his nose, Andrew saying that he wouldn't do it again, me laughing when I thought about it, Isadora saying "I wanna see it" and "Why are you laughing?"

After day care, I kept thinking about how crazy Andrew is; that I was lucky that I was able to get it out; how embarrassed I would have been to have to go to the doctor for it; that I finally had a good excuse for being late; how it was too bad that I didn't have a blog where I could post this story; and how I could scrapbook this crazy morning.

Several hours later it dawned on me that I could have used a bulb syringe - I'll keep that in mind if it ever happens again.