Pea Issues

I just had such a clever moment, I had to put it on the Internet. As Chickerdoodles was eating her lunch, I excused myself to the washroom. Since she’s nearly two, I keep my ears open, and do what I gotta do, but rarely for more than a minute. When I returned, I found that she had gotten a pea up her nose. I mean, really up there. An average sized pea looked like a small pea, as much of it was around a corner.

I had a similar problem with half a Cheerio, but it wasn’t nearly so far up; it was barely out of reach. I covered her mouth and other nostril, and the cereal just floated out on a wave of air and snot. Problem solved.

I tried this with the pea, but it was clearly futile; the larger item wouldn’t simply float out. Plus, she was looking at me fearfully, and I decided that covering her airways for an extended period of time could cause quite the emotional trauma.

Needing another plan, I tried to get her to mimic me, blowing aggressively through my nose. She found this quite amusing, but not very helpful. I sneeze would have been great, but inducing one would be tricky.
The next best thing was laughing. My next plan was to take her to the living room and tickle her. That got it! After about a minute, the offending vegetable was safely on the floor! Yay, Me!

Have you ever had to get something out of a child’s nose or ear? I’d love to hear your stories, just in case tickle-therapy doesn’t work next time.