Minutiae

Today I am deeply preoccupied with my son’s nose. It seems to be full of boogers. Every morning I put a bit of physiomer, a saline solution, into his nose to clear out anything blocking his airways. My pediatrician recommended it. He also warned against overuse of the NoseFrida, on grounds that it probably didn’t feel good. It was hard to argue with this logic.

This morning in the nursery, I put in the solution, like normal, and he sneezed out a big booger. Success.

I carried him into the sitting room and handed him to my husband. ‘Wow,’ he said, peering up the baby’s nose. ‘He’s got a very big booger in his nose. How are we going to get that out?’ 

I peered up his nostrils. It was big. ‘Give me a Kleenex,’ I said. I wiped his little nose from the side and out came a substantial chunk of snot. ‘Look at that,’ I said to my husband.

‘Bravo, Mama,’ he said. I considered it a win, keeping my baby’s nose clean.

 But as the day went on, little specks of dried snot continued to accumulate on the rim of his nostrils. Determined not to stick my fingers into his nose, I resorted to blowing on them, pinching his nostrils together, or rubbing my fingertip over his top lip over and over. I annoyed him profoundly and the specks would not go away. Clearly they were doing nothing to the baby, he could breathe fine despite his nose looking a little dirty. But the look of it bothered me. He looked so unkempt with snot in his nose. People who visited would think I did not keep my child clean.

Of course, no one is visiting these days, except my mother-in-law. 

My fight against the boogers continued. Eventually they disappeared on their own.