One Exciting Day

Salt Lake

Hello,

On Fridays, Olivia goes to pre-school while Nora stays home or does whatever excursion is on the plan. Today the plan was to go shopping for groceries, store them at home, and then proceed to the mall before going back to pick up Olivia at noon. As we were in the car going to the first grocery store, Nora announced, “I need a tissue.”

I handed her a napkin because we could not find any tissues. After a bit I happened to look back and see that she was sticking the paper up her nose. I told her not to do that and with confidence that she would not, turned around to watch the traffic racing around on the interstate. Soon Nora cried, “I have paper up my nose.”

I could not see it, but she was sticking her finger in the nostril. She stopped as instructed, but snuffed her nose and cried some. We tried to get her to blow air out of that nostril with no success instead there was a little more snuffing. Miriam tried to get her to stop crying, but I wondered if crying would help to make her nose run and get it out. That made Nora stop crying. We were then able to get off the interstate and inspect this nose a little closer. Miriam could see paper, but not get it in this tiny three year old nostril. Nora’s nose was a little bloody, but that was probably from her fingernail. Miriam and I both thought that it would take a Dr. to get it out and because we were relatively close to their Dr.’s office we just went there. No Dr. could see them, but a nurse looked at it with the proper lighted instrument and thought she could get it out. She did a great job of showing Nora the two additional instruments that she would use: one to spread the nostril open and one to retrieve. Nora kept her head perfectly still and it was out in no time. The best thing was that there was no charge for this.

In the mall Nora was a bit bored and wanted to be on her own but we managed to keep her with us until the end. She was in my care when she declared that she had to go potty. I said, “Ok, but I want to call your mom first to let her know that we are going downstairs. In the time that I was looking at my phone, Nora moved off. Before I could complete the call, Miriam came up. At that moment I realized I could not see Nora. We called her name, looked over by the elevator, called her name louder, looked in a bigger area, and called her name even louder. Miriam had just approached a couple store employees about a missing child when an unconcerned Nora came into view.

Relief, scolding, and thankfulness were all mixed up.

Paula