What do these items have in common?

1. They are all vegetables (corn & a pea).
2. They are all small.
3. They were all in Joel's nose at some point this weekend.

I was away at a ladies' retreat with our church family and Ed was in charge of the boys all weekend. He did a SUPER job, by the way (he took them out to breakfast, to the zoo downtown, to the library and on walks outside). He also, however, had a funny thing happen to him. He set Samuel and Joel at the table on Saturday night to start eating while he finished getting everything together. Samuel kept asking if he and Joel could put peas up their nose. Ed turned around and saw that Joel had managed to stick two peas up the same nostril. He got one out, but couldn't get the other. He called the neighbor over and the neighbor held Joel's head still while Ed plucked the other pea out with a pair of tweezers. I had a good laugh about the whole thing and even thought about how I would blog about Daddy's Little Mishap While Mommy Was Gone.

And then I was in charge of dinner.

And Joel shoved corn up his nose.

Ugh. I got the first piece out, but then saw there was another piece up there. I tried and tried with the tweezers, but didn't have any luck. Ed tried to help me too, but we just couldn't get it. I took him to the neighbors' and we tried a Netty Pot to get it out (flushed it with warm water), but still nothing. We looked up there after all of that and couldn't see it, so we thought maybe he had sucked it in far enough and swallowed it.

He hadn't. When he woke up this morning, I realized that piece of corn was still in there. So I did what any sensible mom who wanted to avoid the $20 co-pay at the doctor's office would do - I got out the vacuum cleaner. I saw a couple weeks ago that our Kirby has an attachment for inflating/deflating toys, etc and I thought that attachment would fit perfectly up someone's nose. I tried it on myself first to make sure it didn't suck my brain out or anything, and then I turned on Joel. It worked like a charm! The corn came out and we were merrily on our way.

Until I noticed a little later in the morning that he had yet ANOTHER piece of corn up there!! He had shoved three pieces up the same nostril! I got out the vacuum again and we sucked out the third piece.

So much for making fun of Ed for his Little Mishap. :)