Nose stuffing

Our soon-to-be-two year-old is bit of a character. The third of our children, she is independent, easy going and busy. If her repeated requests for things are ignored (or lost in the general cacophany which is our home), then she will do her 23-month best to sort herself out. As a result, we have had the kitchen flooded as she gets her own water, seen an ipod ruined as she stirred her pretend tea with it, and numerous other small events have eventually been traced back to her little-fingered endeavours.

On the whole I applaud her can do attitude, sunny disposition and toughness.

But of course there are somethings that she likes to do, about which I am not so keen! One of these is her recently developed penchant for "nose-stuffing". This started with a small plastic bead in her right (always the right) nostril which we removed with tweezers while visiting a friend's house. A couple of days later there was most of her honey sandwich at breakfast time. I managed to get her to snort this out, and the blockage was cleared. On Sunday, we had the green mini-smartie sweet jammed up there and removed by means of gentle prodding of the outside of the nose.

I have not had a "stuffer" to deal with before. I have nannied four American boys, au paired for numerous french children and now had three children of my own, but this nose stuffing is a new thing. I hope the novelty wears off soon, before she ends up having to have something surgically removed (a girl I knew when I was 12 was locally-known for having had a brass pixie surgically removed from her nasal cavity!)