Adorable, Right Up Until…
The world is full of mundane things. Things to which no one gives a second glance. But when you make those tiresome things smaller, they become irresistibly adorable. Hot dogs, furniture, candy bars—all pretty boring. Mini franks, tiny chairs, and snack-size candy bars—all adorable. I even read today about mini-pigs becoming a big pet fad in the UK. And so it makes perfect sense that when you scale the world down to toddler-size, it becomes too cute for words.
One of the first things we do in life is to start learning. Everything. When we’re born, we’ve got nuthin’. We can suck, sleep, poo, piddle, blink, breathe, and cry, but that’s about it. Most of it is your basic reflex-type stuff. Everything else must be learned and mastered as we grow. Along the way, we master things like rolling over, crawling, walking, running, etc. Adults running—no big deal. Toddlers running—delightful. We also encounter things like hiccups. Adult hiccups—who cares? Kid hiccups—super cute! Once we learn to smile we may find the hiccups funny. Once we learn how to be silly, they become hilarious. We also come across things like sneezing. Probably pretty disturbing to a little kid the first several times. Why on earth would we explode like that? Lord knows stuff comes out every other orifice. Did we really need to add our noses into the bargain, and so violently?
Confusion and fear aside, when a sneeze comes out of someone so small, it’s endearing. In the Lass’s case, it can be really funny, as well. She reminds me of my Oma, who nearly always sneezed three times and there was often at least one that teased her for a bit before exiting. She gets the “ah..aH..AH..(nuthin’)” treatment several times before the “choo!” arrives. She thinks it’s funny. I do, too. Of course, along with sneezing comes snot. No point in being indirect on this one. Snot is, quite simply, a big part of being a kid. It’s often comical, too. When she was really little, the Lass didn’t like getting her nose wiped any more than the next kid. These days, it bugs her to have snot running down her lip. For a while now, she’s been pulling Kleenex out of the box and blowing into it to imitate Mommy and Daddy. It’s cute. Really cute. But it’s never been when she actually needed one. Imagine my surprise when it came time to really wipe her nose and she allowed it. Not only allowed it, but helped.
At the moment, she has a sniffle. She feels fine, but sneezes a lot and usually requires some maintenance by the third “choo!” I had visions of her running in the opposite direction when I tried to wipe her nose, leaving me with snot streaks on my hands, possibly my clothes and several surfaces in the general vicinity. But when I approached her, she stayed put. I gently placed a Kleenex against her nose and cautiously encouraged her to blow. She did. A fluke? Nope, she did it again. Cleared a good bit out, too. Let me tell you, there are few things cuter than a tiny little girl blowing her nose on command. Except, of course, the fact that she’s really proud of it!
All of the sneezing and nose blowing was pretty stinkin’ sweet, save for the germ-spewing aspect. The Lass would sneeze, giggle, and then look at me with an almost pleading face as she brought her lower lip up to Zamboni her upper lip. I’d hold the Kleenex, she’d blow, I’d praise, she’d grin. Naturally, I was feeling rather proud that we had avoided the goat rodeo of Toddler Nose-Blowing lore. In fact, it was all completely blissful and charming………… right up until I saw her blowing her snot-slathered nose on the hand towel in the kitchen last night. Urgh! How often had she done that without my notice? What else has been baptized in snot? And how on earth do you praise a kid for blowing their nose in a Kleenex and then discourage them from blowing it elsewhere?
I guess we have more work cut out for us than we thought. Good thing she’s tiny and cute :o)
Have a gross and funny kid story to tell? Let’s hear it!