Cackle PSA: How to get that thing out of your kid's nose

Somehow we made it through just over 5 years of being parents without anyone sticking anything up their nose. I guess we were due, then, when Rory decided to find out what happens when one sticks a googly eye up one's nose. I can tell you what happens - it gets stuck. Stuck stuck, you can't see it stuck, bring out the nose speculum stuck. And you spend 3 hours in the ER waiting room, because of course he'd try this little experiment on a Sunday, the day before Memorial Day. When I was in a cast and on a scooter. It was awesome. Even more awesome was that, after spending all that time in the waiting room, once we got back to see someone, the nurse asked us if we'd tried the following method to remove it. We hadn't, so we did, and it worked, and the nose was spared the speculum invasion (although the trauma might have stopped him from doing it again in the future).


So, on behalf of all of you imaginary readers and your imaginary kids who stick imaginary things up their noses, here is a Cackle Loud Public Service Announcement: Removing a Foreign Object From Nose. To save you three hours on a Sunday afternoon, hours which would have been much more profitably spent watching Dr. Who.

1. Convince your child to lie down. This might take some doing if your child, like Rory, was wigging because not only had he stuck something up his nose, he had been specifically told NOT TO STICK THIS IN YOUR NOSE 5 minutes before he did stick it in his nose.
2. Use your finger to close the unobstructed nostril - like you're going to do CPR.
3. Put your mouth over your child's mouth - again, like you're going to do CPR.
4. Tell your child to stop giggling, it's not that freaking funny, and didn't you tell him not to stick that friggin' googly eye up his nose?
5. Repeat step 3.
6. Blow really really hard.
7. Clean the snot off the side of your face.
8. Tell your kid to stop giggling. Again. Threaten to go ahead and get the doctor with the scopes and the speculums.
9. Blow really really hard.
10. Retrieve the foreign object from wherever it shot. Put it in an envelope and make your child carry it around all day. Every time he sees you, he has to show you that he has it and repeat, "I will not stick a googly eye up my nose. I will not stick a googly eye up my nose."
    

Please note that step 10 does not work quite so well if what your child has crammed up her nose is something less solid, something more like, say pancakes or playdough. Although this method will remove those less object-y and more "why the fuck would you stick this gooey crap up your nose" as well.