Clara used to put everything in her mouth, and I mean everything, if you don’t believe me read this: The Second Child

For the most part Clara has stopped attempting to eat inappropriate things, and moved on to new bad habits.

Yesterday it started with a pomegranate seed…

…in her nose.

A quick blow of the nose and out it came. I tried to tell her that it was a bad idea to put things in her nose. But clearly I didn’t make much of an impression because a few hours later she came down with a small plastic rose in her nose. Plastic roses are apparently much less comfy on the nose than pomegranate seeds. This time Clara was willing to believe that putting things in your nose hurts, and agreed not to do it anymore.

Not long after John got home from work  Storm, my camera and I headed outside for a walk.  When I was only a few pictures into my walk and barely beyond the yard I was called back into the house. Less than thrilled about returning so soon I expected bloodshed or some other equally bad catastrophe to have occurred. I walked in to find John looking slightly panicked, Jane screaming, Clara looking like she just got yelled at and Ivy sobbing in the bathroom.  That’s when I learned that I forgot to tell Clara not to put things in other peoples noses either.  A quick blow of  Ivy’s nose and another rose was produced.

John, who had been assembling tweezers and headlamps while I went for Kleenex,  profusely apologized for his panic and lack of common sense.  Feeling benevolent I decided to chalk the loss of his reason up to three crying girls. That sort of noise scrambles my brain on a daily basis and since there wasn’t any bloodshed in the house yet I didn’t think it should start over a missed walk.

Then I turned to a still sobbing Ivy to ask the question. Why? Why would you let your little sister shove a small rose up your nose?

I am ashamed to say that I couldn’t ask my poor crying daughter this without a massive fit of the giggles, and so tried to be content with the completely unsatisfactory answer of “I didn’t know what she was doing.”

Really? She got it that far in and you didn’t figure it out? Really?

Deciding that laughing while continuing to question Ivy wasn’t helping and that she had learned her lesson about allowing Clara near her nose without any further intervention on my part  I took the screaming baby into the other room.

Soon everyone had stopped crying and life was back to normal. I was left with the impression that while it’s good to be needed I’d like to be needed a little less and get out a little more.

We’ll be working on that.

I’m thinking maybe earplugs for John so that his brain can continue to function no matter the circumstances and nose plugs for Ivy – just in case.