Sniff . . . Sniffle . . . Sniff-Sniff . . .

Why do my children refuse to blow their noses?  What is the answer to this great riddle?  Was it the nose bulb wielded by an overzealous daddy in the early days?  Are they afraid to lose this precious part of themselves?  Are they genetically predisposed to torturing their mother?

What is it?  What is it and how can I fix it?  Isaac and Hannah both have this aversion.  So far Ruth’s actually been willing to engage in some genuine nose blowing.  Isaac will do it now, but only under extreme duress.  Hannah?  Refuses.  At all cost.

As I write this I am sitting in Hannah and Isaac’s room waiting for Hannah to fall asleep.  She struggled to fall asleep–though I think she may have finally slipped off into the land of nod while I was writing the title of this post–because she got a sniffle.  She doesn’t have a cold or anything, so it’s not like she has the sniffles. No, she just had a random need for a tissue.  But she will not use one.  Ever.  Well, that’s not true, she is willing to wipe her nose with it, she simply refuses to blow her nose into it.

So there she lay, at half-past nine, “Sniff . . . sniff . . . snifflesniff . . . whimper . . . sniff . . .” for fifteen minutes.  While I sat and listened to it.  Yuck.  I didn’t even suggest a tissue because I know it would come across as if I were suggesting we actually remove her nose from her face and she’d get all riled up again.  No.  I just sat here and listened.

And my poor little brain, fizzled out on some sort of random sickness and fever I have at the moment, said, “Hey.  I haven’t written a blog post in a while.  I know.  I’ll write about Hannah’s gross sniffing.”

So there you have it ladies and gentlemen: My life.  Soundtrack produced by a four-year-old and her gross symphony of sniffs and sniffles.

Tune in tomorrow for more tales of putrid bodily fluids and functions.  ‘Bet you can hardly wait!