So some of you might have seen on Facebook that Gladys did indeed put a plastic bead in her nose on Friday. This, in case any of you are wondering, is one of the two reasons why I generally don't welcome and delight in the acquisition of beads--that ubiquitous pink vat of beads available in a thousand craft stores across this great land. The other reason is that babies crawling around like to try to swallow them.
So Gladys came into the kitchen on Friday and said, "A wittle bead wolled up off the table and wolled into my dose."
"Oh really," we all said. "It just rolled up? Might it also be that you picked it up and put it in your nose?"
"No!" she posited, "it weally weally weally wolled up."
"Well, maybe we can try to get it out."
"No," she said, "that's ok. God will get it out in a while."
So, we tried some things.
We tried suctioning it out with the blue bulb thing you get every time you go to the hospital to have a baby. We tried rubbing pepper on her nose to make her sneeze. I tried shouting at the bead. But overall we didn't panic because we have two nurses staying with us, and my Great Aunt who is a doctor. None of them seemed to be freaking out, so I opted not to freak out. And every time we had a go at getting the bead out, Gladys said, "That's ok, God will get it out in a while."
And I said, "That's true, sweetie pie, and one way that God does things is by using his people and it might be that he wants to get that bead out by using me or daddy to help."
"Well," she said, "God doesn't need help. He will get it out."
As I fed the baby her second large bowl of cereal in the parish hall during the eight o'clock service, sorting Catechesis Album pages and refereeing a volatile checkers game between Elphine and Alouicious, I asked Gladys about her bead, which was causing her nose to run a lot all over. It was still there. She said it was fine. From which point on I didn't give it another thought, careening through the morning trying connect with people, getting replacement acolytes, doing whatever it is I normally do--I already can't remember.
At the very end of the morning, after Sunday school and church and everything, as I stood around trying to resist coffee hour cake, I was brought the bead by the person sitting with Gladys in church (my kids sit with whoever will pay the most attention to them, usually not me). And then Gladys twirled up and confirmed that indeed it was her bead. Later, at home, she explained, "God made me sneeze during church and my bead came out."
2 comments:
Well I am vastly relieved to hear that the bead is no longer up the nose, since I WAS freaking out in Nairobi. I hope she (and all the others) never let this sort of thing happen again. Her great aunt Sharon allowed a bean to "roll" up her nose once but she was, at the time, a small child in Tanzania, and the bean wasn't plastic, so it had the potential to be a big problem. Such a big problem that Gladys' great grandmother and great grandfather packed young Sharon in the car and drove 50 miles to a hospital in the dark of night. Whereupon, when arriving, Sharon sneezed and out it came. But you can't be too careful, I say. ME
That is a great story! I'm glad Gladys was relieved of her bead.
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