caleb see, caleb do...
Ahem, the time has come for Caleb to do anything and EVERYTHING he sees anyone, especially his DAD or his BIG BROTHER, doing. I will give Logan a temporary pass for the first few pages in this new chapter of our family book. He, after all, has only been a big brother for twenty-three-ish months. Lynn, on the other hand, has been a dad for four years, three months, and several minutes now. With all this time and experience under his belt he still fails to remember that his children watch and emulate EVERY SINGLE FREAKING THING he does.
Case in point: Friday I took Logan for an evaluation with a speech pathologist. He did very well at the evaluation and as a treat I bought him a bag of peanut M&M's. Well, apparently I missed the memo - Logan does not care for peanut M&M's anymore, thank you very much. So we saved the bag to give to Dad and Caleb when we arrived home. We walked in the door, handed Dad the bag of M&M's and Dad proceeded to stick one brown peanut M&M in his left nostril. This may as well have occurred in slow motion and then instant replay, because both boys watched in awe (and I shot laser beams out of my eyes) as it transpired. Now, granted, Lynn hasn't had any previous experience with children shoving foreign objects up theirs or someone else's nose. I'll give him that. I, on the other hand, know first hand about this phenomenon. I'll just say this: it must have seemed like a good idea at the time to shove a Lantana berry up my little brother's nose, but it wasn't. The little green beebees expand once they're shoved into a toddler's nasal cavity. Who knew? Anyway, not a minute later, sweet little Caleb is standing there in the foyer with us attempting to shove a BROWN PEANUT M&M up his left nostril. I couldn't even stand it, I yelled at Lynn, "do you see this?!? If this doesn't prove my point, I don't know what will!! *Insert face-melting explitive here*." We confiscated all the remaining M&M's and then went on about our business.
Lynn was on the phone with the airline, I was putting laundry away, the boys were downstairs playing. Then Caleb started crying. And then the crying turned to slight hysteria as Caleb climbed the stairs. He walked over to me crying, sticking his finger up his nose. The first thing I noticed was orange snot all over his face...couldn't think of what would cause ORANGE snot so I called on my ninja mothering skills and smelled the foreign substance on my child's face. Since we don't have smell-o-vision here, imagine the smell of Sweet-Tart slobber. Yes, Logan shared some Sweet-Tart pellets with Caleb and Caleb decided to shove an orange one up his left nostril. It fit perfectly too. Lucky for Caleb his mother keeps assorted sizes and types of hemostats around the house for her crafty pursuits. I laid him down on the floor to see if I could wrangle his hands and dig the candy out of his nose. No dice. Lynn was on hold with the airline so he held Caleb's hands while I tried to retrieve the errant confection. The first try only succeeded in shoving the candy further up Caleb's nose. Caleb was losing faith in me fast. So I picked him up and carried him to the changing table where I stood him up and proceeded to blow puffs of air into his good nostril in hopes of pushing the candy back down...it worked! It also served to seriously piss the patient off. I laid Caleb down on the changing table and Lynn, who was still on hold with the airline, grabbed Caleb's hands again. I stuck the hemostat just inside Caleb's nostril this time and opened them as wide as I could without hurting Caleb and grabbed at the candy, missed it! Crap! Tried a third time and VOILA! (the third time IS the charm), the candy was finally out of my child's head. We are all ecstatic and then I snapped to and (half jokingly) barked obscene things at Lynn as to where I should shove the candy as a reminder to him to act more RESPONSIBLY around the boys. As I'm finishing up my tirade we hear the operator from the airline frantically shouting, "Sir! Sir! Mr. Lyons! Is everything okay?" We both laughed and then he gave the operator the Reader's Digest version of the tale of the misplaced candy. She offered to book him flight to some place uncomfortable. Hee.
Case in point: Friday I took Logan for an evaluation with a speech pathologist. He did very well at the evaluation and as a treat I bought him a bag of peanut M&M's. Well, apparently I missed the memo - Logan does not care for peanut M&M's anymore, thank you very much. So we saved the bag to give to Dad and Caleb when we arrived home. We walked in the door, handed Dad the bag of M&M's and Dad proceeded to stick one brown peanut M&M in his left nostril. This may as well have occurred in slow motion and then instant replay, because both boys watched in awe (and I shot laser beams out of my eyes) as it transpired. Now, granted, Lynn hasn't had any previous experience with children shoving foreign objects up theirs or someone else's nose. I'll give him that. I, on the other hand, know first hand about this phenomenon. I'll just say this: it must have seemed like a good idea at the time to shove a Lantana berry up my little brother's nose, but it wasn't. The little green beebees expand once they're shoved into a toddler's nasal cavity. Who knew? Anyway, not a minute later, sweet little Caleb is standing there in the foyer with us attempting to shove a BROWN PEANUT M&M up his left nostril. I couldn't even stand it, I yelled at Lynn, "do you see this?!? If this doesn't prove my point, I don't know what will!! *Insert face-melting explitive here*." We confiscated all the remaining M&M's and then went on about our business.
Lynn was on the phone with the airline, I was putting laundry away, the boys were downstairs playing. Then Caleb started crying. And then the crying turned to slight hysteria as Caleb climbed the stairs. He walked over to me crying, sticking his finger up his nose. The first thing I noticed was orange snot all over his face...couldn't think of what would cause ORANGE snot so I called on my ninja mothering skills and smelled the foreign substance on my child's face. Since we don't have smell-o-vision here, imagine the smell of Sweet-Tart slobber. Yes, Logan shared some Sweet-Tart pellets with Caleb and Caleb decided to shove an orange one up his left nostril. It fit perfectly too. Lucky for Caleb his mother keeps assorted sizes and types of hemostats around the house for her crafty pursuits. I laid him down on the floor to see if I could wrangle his hands and dig the candy out of his nose. No dice. Lynn was on hold with the airline so he held Caleb's hands while I tried to retrieve the errant confection. The first try only succeeded in shoving the candy further up Caleb's nose. Caleb was losing faith in me fast. So I picked him up and carried him to the changing table where I stood him up and proceeded to blow puffs of air into his good nostril in hopes of pushing the candy back down...it worked! It also served to seriously piss the patient off. I laid Caleb down on the changing table and Lynn, who was still on hold with the airline, grabbed Caleb's hands again. I stuck the hemostat just inside Caleb's nostril this time and opened them as wide as I could without hurting Caleb and grabbed at the candy, missed it! Crap! Tried a third time and VOILA! (the third time IS the charm), the candy was finally out of my child's head. We are all ecstatic and then I snapped to and (half jokingly) barked obscene things at Lynn as to where I should shove the candy as a reminder to him to act more RESPONSIBLY around the boys. As I'm finishing up my tirade we hear the operator from the airline frantically shouting, "Sir! Sir! Mr. Lyons! Is everything okay?" We both laughed and then he gave the operator the Reader's Digest version of the tale of the misplaced candy. She offered to book him flight to some place uncomfortable. Hee.
posted by Amy at 10:38 AM
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