March 5, 2015tinyexpats

A tale of a toddler, a crayon and a multilingual experience in Czech hospital

Having two small kids around, it helps to occasionally let go and allow yourself not to worry about little things. Little annoying things. For example, mess all over your flat, plastic cutlery in a socks drawer, toys in a kitchen cabinet, etc. A tidy up maniac that I am, I think, I’m doing pretty good nowadays, trying to control the urge to wash everything as soon as it gets dirty and yesterday was a pretty good example.

You know those soft crayons, which are made specifically to use as a face paint? My girls love them. Not only do they’d colour all of their bodies in an Indian/Avatar patterns, these crayons are easily washed off the surfaces, therefore, mom doesn’t get all mad, when they make living room laminate floor so much prettier. The colour of the day was black and by the time the girls moved on from body art to cave paintings, they already looked pretty scary to me. Soon they got a bit tired of drawing snails (the 5 year old) and doodles (the 2 year old) and decided to move on to another activity.

When my toddler came up to me pointing at her nose, I had no reason to worry – she had a cold after all, so I was just going to wipe it. Of course, that would’ve been too easy. After a short, but meaningful, conversation with my daughter, I discovered that something got stuck in her nose. Not just stuck – pushed in pretty deep (I guess, in an effort to get it out). A piece of black facial paint crayon was a perfect fit for that tiny nostril.

All three of us dressed up at the speed that could be envied by firefighters and my husband took an amazingly short time to get back home from work (I guess ‘Quick! Need to go to the hospital!! The baby has a crayon up her nose!!! Hurry!!!” and two voices shouting in the background helped; the baby was shouting and the older one was having a panic attack worrying that the crayon might get to the baby’s brain).

And here we come to the local hospital in Pardubice, Czech Republic. I should say that, after almost a year here, I understand quite a lot already, but my active vocabulary is very small, so I find it hard to come up with the right words, although I would understand them, if I heard them. At first, we had a brisk sprint around the hospital territory, reading signs, asking passersby and trying to figure out, where we can find a paediatric building (I’ve been there before, but this time it had scaffolding all over, so don’t blame me for not recognising it straight away). Explaining what the toddler did exactly was a bit tricky, especially with black liquid maliciously running out of her nose. In the end, a mix of Czech, English, German and Russian helped us to identify a problem and the paediatrician sent us off to the specialist. Ten minutes later, in another office, after more pantomime on my side and some nose-picking on a doctor’s side, the crayon was out! Relief. The toddler said ‘bye’ in Russian and the 5-year old in Czech – TCK’s in action.

Today’s challenge on Photography 101 course was ‘Bliss’. You know, after that eventful evening, watching my baby sleep safe and sound in her bed, I know what that word means.

bliss
This photo and the story behind it – my definition of bliss.

evry-day-mom-badge

This story is also my entry for the Every Day Mom link up on Diapers and Tutus.

18 comments

  1. What a harrowing experience! Even though I have five children, I never had to take a child to the ER for object-removal-from-nose until we got to child #5. A tiny Lego piece was the culprit. I guess this is a rite of passage for mothers? Glad she is okay.

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    • I didn’t have to deal with it with my older daughter either, but, I guess, you’re right – it’s something we have to deal with eventually :) She’s fine, thank you, forgot all about it straight away :)

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  2. Oh what a story you have to tell when they are older and dating. My youngest at the age of three started to have a bad smell about her. I bathed and washed and checked every orifice for two days then decided this is not good. Went to hospital. Dr. Agreed there is a smell but couldnt find anything. Then he had idea. He used a suction in her nose and slowly a very green smelly looking (piece of sponge) came out. Yuck but she never put anything in her nose again. Not sure if it was from my constantly bathing brushing and checking her or the nose suction.

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  4. Mom-hood. Yep. I think ours was a bean-up-the-nose but it’s been so many years ago I could be mistaken, but my second, the proverbial wild child, was constantly in a fit of something. I swore if he lived to be four years old, he’d grown into a strong man. And he did. All 6’4″ of him. With numerous scars along arms, legs, etc. Item-in-nose does seem to be a rite of passage for most of us. Love the pink cuddly photo. She was probably glad for a nap. And no doubt you were!

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  5. Love the link at the end to the ‘bliss’ theme! Did this happen today? Sounds very scary! I cover something like this in the survival guide – make sure you know where to go and how to communicate when you get there in case of a medical emergency. Yours would be a perfect example! I hope you don’t mind but I think I am going to reblog this to my blog….

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  6. Reblogged this on and commented:
    A perect example of why it’s always wise to be prepared (where to go, how to communicate when you get there…) for any medical emergency when you move overseas. A scary situation at the best of times, somethig like this can be very daunting if you have just relocated somewhere new.

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  10. hello there.just blogwalking when i found this.i was in the same situation as yours when my daughter was 2,5 years old.she put chips (form like a tiny ball) into her nose. what a horrible experience ! but thanks God everything ended well.lesson I got: always keep an eye of a toddler even in a very normal situation (my toddler’s situation: snacking time). glad to know that your toddler was safe and sound at the end :-)

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