But It Was No Booger...

I'm becoming concerned that as a mother of all boys, my life for the next 15 or so years is going to be about gross bodily functions.  Maybe all moms feel this way, but the older the boys get, the more they amaze me with a different kind of gross than before.  And no, this is not a potty update.

I also used to think that my boys were just a little smarter than your average kid.

Apparently not.

Because this morning while I was getting ready for church and allowing them to watch PBS unattended, M came into my bathroom crying.  I assumed that he was upset about his brother taking a toy from him, which is usually the cause of such a scene.  It was a mylar balloon the other day. 

But now he can speak, and he was saying through his tears and sobs, "Booger!  Get the booger out!" while, of course, trying to fish it out himself.  We have lots of talks about using a tissue instead of your finger with him, but it's not quite getting through, so maybe that's where I should have known that they're not particularly advanced..  Teaching him to blow OUT instead of suck IN is also another challenge, likely why he's not quite enamored with tissues - because they don't work! 

Nevertheless, I attempted to remove said booger, and even took a peek up there because he seemed abnormally upset about this one (he usually takes care of them himself, his way).  I saw nothing, nothing came out, he just kept sniffing and calmed down.  So I took him to his room to get dressed, assuming the incident was over and the booger would come out when it was ready.

Midway through the choosing of the clothes and the dressing, the "booger" slid out. 

But it was no booger.

It was a tiny rear-view mirror, shown above next to an M&M for size comparison. 

A REAR VIEW MIRROR, did you catch that?!

I was able to remain calm, but firm, telling him that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING goes up your nose, this was a no-no, and he's lucky it came out on its own so that he didn't have to "go to the doctor and get a shot" (our typical threat).

I thought only other people's kids put things up their noses, and I thought it was only peas when they did.  This could have been awful, especially because I had NO IDEA it was even up there!  Yikes.

Investigating the car to which the rear view mirror belonged, I discovered BOTH mirrors are missing.  When asked where the other one is, M told me, "In the garbage," and while I don't actually see it there, I sure do hope it was put there at some point.  Because when they break stuff like that, I just say, "It goes in the garbage - there are some things mommy can't fix!"  Which may come back to bite me in the butt someday, but I'm willing to take my chances rather than try to glue those things back on.

Ugh.  Gross.  And little scary, mostly because I do not want to spend Sunday morning in Urgent Care and spending a fortune to get a rear view mirror removed from my toddler's nostril.