A Nose Drama and The Last Straw

A Nose Drama...

10pm and I was making noodles for the boys.

They had an early dinner today as Gadget-daddy had a dinner appointment. So by 7pm the boys were done eating Grandma's delicious chicken rice. They played, read books, played some more, watched a few music videos on Cbeebies and then Max declared he needed "something", meaning something to eat.

After feeding the two boys supper, at the dining table and also in the kitchen (half way through they decided they wanted to "race" on the new kitchen mat - non-slip), I was in the kitchen washing up. Max was in Grandma's room with Grandma, and Micah was playing by himself while Grandpa watched TV. As I finished, I heard Micah crying and wailing and saying something between his terrified sobs.

He walked into the kitchen, "I put something in my nose. Waaah..."
Mommy on her toes. "What? What is it? Let me see?"
"Something. Something there." More terrified crying.
Grandpa started scolding. Grandma came and asked him to blow his nose while I looked for a torch light in the kitchen.
"Blow your nose. Again. Again."
"Waaah. Now they have to operate me. Waaah!"
I carried up a stool in the kitchen and looked up his nose.
Nothing.
"What is it?"

Everyone was talking at the same time, more like panic shouting:
"What is it? How does it look like? Was it the magnet? (No) Was it a tooth pick end? (No)"
"You silly boy. How could you do that?!"
"What happened to koh-koh?"
"Koh-koh, why? Why?"
"What is it? Tell me what is it. Where did you get it?"
"It's gold and flat."

Duh???! I looked at the table where he was playing before and there was nothing there that had anything gold and flat. They were all his trains and cars. Nothing. Gold and flat didn't make sense.

In the midst of the chaos I started laughing. I could not help it. This was just so classic.
In a flash I remembered LM Alcott's Little Women and Jo March who put a pebble up her nose and suffered for a week before she got her mother to call the doctor.

Finally I got him to sit on the bean bag.
"Come, let me see. Stop crying. Breath slowly, so I can see."
It calmed him a bit. But he kept repeating that they will have to operate on him to get the thing out.

He blew his nose so many times. Nothing came out.
My conclusion is that it'd have gone through his nose passage and hopefully down to the stomach through the throat.

Grandma explained to him that that was possible, that he could "pooed" it out. So He settled into drinking his milk. Then he kept blowing his nose until he finally fell asleep in his swing.

We will take him to the doctors tomorrow.


...and The Last Straw

It was in the midst of all the chaos, just as Grandma was stepping towards Micah that she too witnessed my very restrained frustration.

While Micah was crying in great dismay, I was trying to get him settled down the bean bag. That was when it happened. In the midst of scolding, Grandpa pushed his head from the back in anger. It's the kind like how I've seen school teachers do to boys sometimes while I was doing my Pre-U in a boys' school.

That was the last straw. I had always tried to undo a lot of negative stuff from him in relation to my kids, and it's really hard telling the boys all the time that their grandparents love them while I grit my teeth in the way he interacts with them. (Yeah, this is the certain adult that is so hard to be under the same roof with.) So I told him off...in Cantonese, because I did not want the boys to know what I was saying. I made sure he saw the killer look in my eyes though. Grandma then came and told him off too.

That was the last straw that broke this camel's back, more like muzzle! All this while I have really tried to be as polite and respectful as I could (yeah, my parents brought me up well, with lots of Chinese culture's values), but I just could not hold my tongue this time. Usually if he annoys me with senseless complains I'd just answer with a "mmm" just to acknowledge that I'd heard him. I know if I was to say more I'd be rude, to say the least. So I bite my tongue. Today I decided that my son did not need that "knock on the head" as he was already traumatised and I believe has learnt his lesson. That was just too much.

Now the thorn on my side is revealed to all...

*sigh*

Guess I'll try to cool off while ironing.
Good night.