The Good News Is ...

That it melts with the appropriate measure of moisture, properly administered, though it may take several hours. The bad news is that a Twizzler is somewhere in size between a Tic Tac and a mini Marshmallow. A tic tac on steroids, if you will. See where this is going? She'll probably never leave me alone with her again now! Connie and her mom decided to take a road trip to Nashville to see some rocker from yesteryear, er oops, sorry - they went to see Bon Jovi and left me alone with Lily Grace. One night, surely he can handle that, right. Granny'll come over and help him. Austin will be there if needed. No problem, right?

During the day, Lily had come into possession of a little bag of candy called Twizzlers. Not the sticks like you've seen, but little balls of sour candy larger than a bee bee, but smaller than a marble. Soft candy with lots of sugar and probably the quickest ticket to sugar addiction that I've ever seen. She probably got it from that little street peddler I've seen stalking the neighborhood. The day's intake had stoked her to the point of bouncing off walls and she simply had to have some more. Addicted to Twizzlers in a single day at the ripe old age of three. So after a day of work (and a month of Mondays at work), I had no energy left to do battle with the candy-demanding, sweet baby girl. "Pleeeeeeeseee, Dad (notice the Dad), can I have some more candy. I need it."



Rather than draw a line in the sand, I figured the best thing to do was to reach a compromise. Actually, that was the lazy thing to do, I should have drawn that line and dared her to cross it! So I decided to give her two more Twizzlers. "Two more Lily Grace, that's all. Watch a little bit of Dora while I fix dinner." See all the bad decisions here - candy before dinner, TV as a baby sitter, appeasing the demands, .... She'll probably never leave me alone with her again!

So after dinner, Lily admitted in a quiet moment "I can't get it out Dad." And she was tugging at her nose and sniffling. She'd been sniffling from allergies all afternoon and evening, so I thought she was stuffy. We blew the snout and I thought that'd take care of it. A few minutes later, again "Dad, I can't get it out." What sweet baby girl? "The candy." Where is it? "It's in my nose." "What, Lily, please tell me you didn't put that candy up your nose!" Oops, wrong tone of voice. Waterworks. Fear. I felt terrible. So I calmed down and asked her again. "Yes, I ate one and put the other one in my nose." Why did you do that? "Because I'm scared!" (Me too, I didn't add).

So, we cleared a table for the exploratory, non-intrusive surgery, about to be performed by a newly self-annointed expert at nose problems. Tweezers, flashlight, moist rag, OK, let's move out! After a few short minutes of nose compresses, nose wipes, and flashlight excursions, I had to conclude there was nothing in there. "Lily, are you sure you put the candy in your nose?" "No, sniffle, sniffle, it's in my belly." "Whew, sweet baby girl, we don't put things up our nose, OK?" "OK, daddy (back to daddy)."

Comforted by the success of our medical foray, we prepared for bed, read a story, and turned out the lights. Looks like everything's well that end's well, right? Now, fast forward to mid day Friday. Phone rings at work and it's Granny. "Lily just blew a big pink ball out of her nose!" "Do you know anything about that?" Not a thing, Granny. What'd it look like?

I feel terrible! With my tone of voice and my concern, I scared the poor sweet baby girl into lying to me! So if you have some of those Twizzlers in your house and a toddler around, you might want to get rid of them. Or at least go down to your local clinic and learn how to do exploratory, non-intrusive nose surgery. And the good news is that Lily learned that we don't put things up our nose. In fact, as soon as I arrived home from work today, she announced "We don't put candy up our nose, do we daddy!"

Love,
Jerry, Connie, Austin, Lily Grace (and Lia Faith out there somewhere)
Green, Party of Five