How naps can end up costing you...

Recently, my sister, Michelle offered up a terrible lie involving two irresponsible sisters and her nose. She invited commenters to share their own "nose stories." Before you read mine, read Michelle's, because they are related. [update: Michelle no longer has a blog, so I took the links out.]

I will never forget the time....

About 14 years ago, I had put Kyle (age two or three) down for a nap and heard him long afterwards still singing, talking, giggling, etc. Since I really wanted him to sleep, I entered the room to reprimand him and found him with his hands up in the air, making a "huh?" gesture. He said, "Hmmm. It's up there!" Not caring what was "up there," but only about the fact that kids who don't take naps are crabby kids later, I sternly replied, "That's enough now! Go to sleep!" He finally drifted off.

Flash forward to later in the week. Kyle is lying on the floor in front of me as I change his diaper. Suddenly, I see a little flash of something white, inside his nose! I try to get a better look but cannot quite see, so I tell him to stay there, and I retrieve a flashlight. Shining the light into his tiny nostril, I see what appears to be something with a white background and...part of some type of cartoonish face! WTH?! I fetch tweezers and try to pick the thing out, but Kyle is too wiggly.

Later that afternoon, we are in the doctor's office. He pulls out a long, tweezer-like tool and has me hold Kyle down while he extracts.....[drumroll here]....a tiny, child-sized band-aid, which has a picture of the infamous Ernie (of Sesame Street) on it! The doctor said it had likely only been in there less than a week (or it would have stunk to high heaven.) I then flash back to the nap earlier in the week. I had laid Kyle down after having placed a tiny band-aid on his pinky finger to cover up some type of imaginary boo-boo. When he had said, "It's up there!" he was referring to the band-aid he had just shoved up his nose!

And this is why I will not take responsibility for Michelle's getting a Coco Puff stuck up her nose; if I hadn't suggested it, she probably would have thought of it herself, anyway!