We live approximately ten minutes from the Taekwondo Dojang. And ten minutes is all a little boy needs to get into trouble.
We pulled out of the parking lot after class and Child #4 held up an old beaded bracelet of mine that he found in the back of the van. He played with it for about a minute until the elastic broke. Children #3 and #4 played with the pink colored beads until we pulled into the driveway...where disaster struck. Trying to be silly, Child #4 stuck a large pink bead in each nostril. At this same time I was heaving my pregnant body out of the van and I turned to see Child #4 with a ecstatic look on his face...and a nose that looked like a pig's nose. I frowned, shut my door, and started heading on over to their side of the van to let them out.
And then the screaming started. I never knew I could move so fast. I guess I moved this fast when Child #1 dropped Child #3 in the sea when she thought something bit her when I was this pregnant with Child #4... but I digress. I pulled the van door open to shrieks of, "There's a bead stuck in my nose! There's a bead stuck in my nose! You got a bead stuck in my nose!" and the yelled response from his brother, "I already got it out! I didn't do it!" I tell you, we had chaos! I tried to have Child #4 blow the bead, if it was even there, out of his nose. Nothing but snot. I peeked inside his nose. I couldn't see anything. I felt the sides of his nose; these were pretty big beads. I felt nothing. Now I knew we had trouble.
The trouble is, Child #4 doesn't communicate very well. He has a hard time differentiating between 1) There were two beads stuck in his nose and one bead is still there and 2) There was only one bead and it is still there and 3) There was only one bead stuck in his nose and his brother did indeed get it out before I got the van door open so there are no more beads stuck in his nose, but there used to be a bead there. When the fear of going to the hospital sunk in, he story changed over and over. He didn't want to go and get a shot. He froze. He wouldn't tell me what was going on. So I had no choice but to get help.
Luckily, I remembered I didn't have to go into the emergency room and pay $75 to have a doctor look up his nose after waiting for three hours. Our pediatric office has an After Hours Clinic! I called the triage nurse from my cell phone and got back on the road. Good thing no one had taken off their seat belts but me!
The doctor we saw has been removing items from children's noses for over 20 years. He peeked into Child #4's nose as this child sobbed hysterically and asked what color the bead was. Oh, you know, the exact same shade of pink as the inside of his nose... Doctor stepped back, said "There is definitely something up there, but I can't really see it," had Child #4 blow his nose (just like I did), but this time the bead shot out of his nose like a cannon ball! We were so delighted! It turned out the doctor couldn't see anything but the hole in the bead because it was so well camouflaged. He thought we were dealing with a much smaller bead than what shot out of Child #4's nose!
On the way back out to the van, Child #4 said with a big grin on his face, "I'm so smart, Mama. You know why? I can shoot pink beads out of my nose!" I responded, "If you were smart, you wouldn't have stuck that bead up your nose in the first place!"
Just another day in the adventurous life of Raising Boys...
