A Pea Or Two On My Shoulder

Boys never cease to amaze me.

They are crazy and creative. Wild and then cuddly. Seriously sentimental and then hilarious.

With 4 of them, there really is a rare chance of experiencing boredom.

Hudson brought me an unusual first time experience this week. I am learning that this little one is not following suit to the older 3 in many ways. He is quite the little character!

We had spaghetti and meatsauce and peas for lunch on Monday. I glanced over at him and he had his finger up his nose - really, nothing out of the ordinary in a house full of boys.

Much later that evening, I picked him up and was tickling him when he sneezed. Out flew a green pea onto my shoulder. It surprised me and was a little gross all at the same time - but did create some laughter.

Fast forward to the next evening - bedtime routine. I am pulling Hudson out of the bath. He wasn't pleased that swimming time was over so as he flails his head back ...I... catch a glimpse of a bright green object in his nostril. I could not believe it. Seriously. Without a doubt: another pea!

The next string of events caused me and the other 3 boys to try to make him snort like a bull, grunt like a pig, sniff pepper to sneeze again, and so on. Yes, it was some live entertainment! But completely unsuccessful.

I was home alone with the kids - Benjy out of town on business. I was not overly concerned because on one hand, the pea had now been lodged there for the past 36 - 38 hours and everything had been business as usual. But it did cross my mind that strange things may begin to occur if we did not get it out sometime soon.

I decided to do what any modern woman does: consult Google for suggestions :)

You would not believe how many posts popped up to this search: "how to remove a pea from your toddlers nose"! There was even a youtube video demonstration - which ultimately became my source of salvation. Numerous lame suggestions did not convince me - but what we finally did was tackle the mad child, who at this point, was rather irritated that we were all in his face and trying to get up his nose - and after pinning him down in the awkward position that had his head trapped and his arms and legs secured - I simply plugged his other nostril, gave him a CPR breath over his mouth and....2 attempts later.....waahhh laaahhhhh - I had another pea fly onto my shoulder!

As any typical little boy - Hudson - and all of the brothers - wanted to see the bright green evidence and laughed so hard at it all.

I simply dusted off my shoulder and chalked it up to another wild and crazy experience of raising kids (with thanks to google for saving me a copay for such a ridiculous purpose).