The stuff of crime labs...

"Mom?"

It was well past bedtime. I heard this little voice coming up the stairs a good hour after we had tucked them all into their little mattresses-on-the-floor-in-the-playroom bed arrangement that we let them have every weekend.

"What?" I growled. I always growl when someone is out of bed. It discourages the getting out of bed. (At least in my mind that's how it works.)

"E.'s got a bloody nose."

Now I hear a second set of feet making their way up the basement stairs.

And whimpering.

My Mommy super-action-hero response kicks in and I'm instantly at the top of the stairs, meeting my poor wounded and bleeding baby.

And I mean BLEEDING!

We head into the bathroom, where he leans over the sink. His hands are covered with blood. He's spitting and coughing and gagging on the stuff. It's a colossal mess.

Now, besides K.'s broken nose, we've never really dealt with bloody noses. I remember K'.s baseball coach (who happens to be a doctor) pinching his nose at the bridge to try to stop the bleeding, so I figure that's a safe thing to do. I think we're supposed to lean forward, not back like we did when we were kids. I pinch and I reassure.

It just keeps bleeding. Huge drips flowing endlessly out his darling little nose.

I venture into an attempt to understand what could have caused such an event...
"Why do you think your nose started bleeding?"

"Well," E. begins, "I had a really big booger and I was trying to get it out and then there was blood everywhere and I didn't know it was blood until it felt really wet and I got up to see why and there was blood all over my hands and, and..." He's losing it. I can tell the discovery of that much blood was pretty upsetting.

I take his little head into my my arms and shush him... "It's okay," while in my head I'm thinking "that booger must have been attached to the sidewalls of his brain to produce this much blood..."

After two-thirds of a box of Kleenex and about ten minutes the blood has slowed to an occasional drip. We begin to clean up a bit. There is blood all over the bathroom. All over his arms and legs and pajamas. On the carpet in the hallway. On the stairs. All over his pillowcase.

As I'm cleaning I'm thinking about FBI agents and how even though I think I got all the blood out of my carpet, they would probably have some sort of fancy blacklight that would illuminate it's presence deep down in the carpet fibers. I resolve never to murder anyone, because I would really stress out over trying to get the blood cleaned up.

Before I tuck him back into his freshened up little mattress on the floor, we have a talk about nose-picking. E. resolves never to pick his nose again.

The next morning, he is struggling with his resolve. Several times, he whines, "Mom, I really want to pick my nose..."

"What happened when you picked your nose last night?"

"Oh, yeah. But it's yucky up there!" (Hmmm - yet another reason not to pick in my book...)

So, I expanded on the nose picking lecture to explain that yes, there are times when we may need to "clean things up a bit" in there... but to pull something out that is obviously firmly attached is just asking for trouble.

To his credit, I didn't even know he picked his nose. I've never noticed him digging away. Heck, I see Asia doing it more than E. At the ripe old age of six he obviously understands the importance of being discreet.

And now he understands the importance of careful booger selection.

Another vital life lesson learned.

Isn't parenting fun?