What goes up, Must come down

My girls LOVE to collect air-soft pellets. For those of you who haven't seen them, they are just like a B.B. from a B.B. gun, but they are plastic and come in a variety of colors. We have lots of middle school boys in the neighborhood, who love having air-soft wars, so the little colorful beads are scattered all throughout the grass and sidewalks around here. Gracyn's absolute favorite thing to do outside is to hunt for and gather them. We have tons in my house.....baggies and bowls full. You can find them in my washing machine, in the girls rooms, in the baskets on their bicycles and, most recently, in Gracyn's nose!!!

Gracyn and Reagan were playing downstairs yesterday, while I was up in my room. Gracyn came upstairs and said to me, "Get my "bead-treasure" out my nose. It is huwt-ing me!". This was a parenting first for me, as my other children have never stuck anything up their nose. I looked and looked, examining her and couldn't see anything. But, she continued to say that she had put it up her nose, that it was hurting and she was getting more and more upset about it. I called our pediatrician and she had a lovely suggestion. She told me to plug Gracyn's other nostril with my finger and then blow fast puffs of air into her mouth. We tried this off and on for thirty minutes with no luck.....only increasing frustration from her. So, we loaded Reagan and Gracyn in the car, picked up Addison at the bus-stop and headed for the Cincinnati Children's ER. I was laughing on the way there, that this is how we would end up with our first ER visit.

Upon our arrival at the hospital, we made a quick stop at the bathroom. While in there, Addison began her inspection of Gracyn. "Yup mom, she put one in there. I can see it, it's green!". Reagan checked her out again next and confirmed it was green. Finally I got a look and saw that yes, we could now see the "bead-treasure". That was progress. At least now I know for sure that she did put it up her nose and we can skip the x-rays. I tried blowing in her mouth a few more times, but couldn't get it to come down any farther.

A few minutes later we were at the registration desk, completing the check-in process. They had just gotten all our information and were about to put a hospital bracelet on her, when suddenly the green "bead-treasure" just sort of slid out. It was nice and slimy, but on the outside again! There were many young boys watching with fascination and she was quite the hit with the nurses.

I kindly asked them to cancel our ER visit, and please don't bill me and we headed home. We have now exhausted the "Don't put anything up your nose conversation" and I don't think it will be happening again anytime soon. There is never a dull moment around here, that is for sure.