Nosey

I have told my daughter on any number of occasions not to put things up their noses. Today my youngest CE stuffed a foil wrapper from an easter egg up her nose. You know those little easter eggs and the foil can be scrunched up into balls? Just such a ball found its way up her nose as I was cooking dinner. This is a rough outline of the events:

Screaming three year old comes into the kitchen in a blind panic. "It's up my nose it won't come oout! Mummy!" Try to calm her down while searching for emergency out of hours doctor's phone number.

Call parents to line up emergency babysitter while still trying to calm child and find number. Decide to phone normal GP's and get answerphone, which tells me the right number. Need to call answerphone again as CE has another panic screaming fit. Write down number and call out-of-hours-service. Someone will call back.

Give dinner to self and eldest while trying to keep youngest calm. Grandpa decided to come over see whether he can help. GP calls back, if I haven't managed to get the ball of silver foil out of the child's nose then I can come to the Minor injuries unit but would I mind having another go, as they are a bit busy. Thanks.

Panicky toddler is not impressed by the idea. Try to extract the foil ball with eyebrow plucking tweezers. D*mn doesn't work. Curse husband for misplacing my long tweezers. Have another go with the eyebrow ones. Meanwhile the daughter is screaming the house down. The foil so tantalizing close yet so far.

Work out conspiracy theory as to why this sort of thing always happens when husband is away. Remember that the sewing machine came with long tweezers.

Shamelessly bribe daughter with a Shelly (this was bought in the Christmas sale a future bribe for eye drops) if she lets me have one last go. Daughter has seen tweezers and is having none of it. CS has seen Shelly and realises she could be in for a present too. Combined force of Grandpa and CS to hold CE down while I remove foil ball.

Hurrah it worked.

Snotty foil ball was admired by child who now stopped screaming and is rosy and happy.

So two happy and content girls have gone to bed. All I need to do now is find a new bribe for when the need eye drops.