Never a Dull Moment

One of my friends here in Niger and I frequently email back and forth throughout the course of our day, and today was no exception except that the topic of our conversation was a little out of the ordinary.

Jonathan comes running up to me as I'm working on the computer, trying to send pictures files to someone who had requested some photos from the baptism/communion service we had last November with the Baneira church group. He's rather excited, squealing in a very high pitched voice: "MAMA! MAMA! Hewelp me! HEWELP ME! Bud...BUD!"

I turn around to find his face and hands covered in blood. He's obviously bleeding somewhere, but the source is not evident. So I scoop him up and off we go to the nearest sink (the kitchen, in case you were wondering) to see if we can clean him up a bit and determine what has happened.

Several minutes later, I've determined that Jonathan has been playing with blue masking tape that he's found somewhere, probably left laying around by one of his older siblings. He's been chewing on it (pretending it was gum), and I extracted a few pieces that he'd gotten stuck in between his teeth. He also decided to shove a small piece of said tape up his nose and then, in his efforts to remove the tape, gave himself quite the nosebleed.

Unfortunately, he'd only managed to massively irritate his nose - while not removing the piece of tape, as the piece of blue tape was clearly visible (well, it was when I held his nose in just the right angle under the flourescent kitchen light).

Thus, you now have the scene that prompted the following email conversation between my friend and I:

Richelle: have either one of your boys ever shoved something up into their nose that you can't get out? any ideas of what to do?

jonathan has shoved a piece of tape up into his nose – at least I think it is still in their because I think (or I'm imagining) that I see the blue from the tape – and he's complaining that there is something there. but he's messed around enough that he got a good nosebleed started. that's stopped, but even just touching his nose to try and look in makes it start again…

My friend: close the empty nostril and blow hard! tweezers? it will be funny when it's out.

Richelle: actually, I think he's pushed it far enough up that I can see it in both nostrils, so which one do I close?

I'm not laughing… yet...

my friend: oh goodness... sounds like a baba job.

(Note - "Baba" is the name Jonathan uses for "Daddy.")

Richelle: *not laughing, but smiling*

After which, our conversation became much more mundane - like the best price we've seen/heard of for 50 kg bags of flour in several weeks.

Just in case you are wondering - I never saw the blue tape leave his nostrils, but he says that it is no longer in there and I can't see it when I find that exact angle under the kitchen lights - so we are assuming (and hoping) it has exited...

I LOVE:

• 3 YEAR OLD LITTLE BOYS;
• and EMAIL!

And, we (as in our whole family... probably my friend's family) ARE laughing about this now!