Snot Suckers and Mutha Uckers

When we were in Japan last fall, during my first excursion to buy maternity clothes, Jason found this and decided to buy it:

Baby torture device? No! Ingenious snot sucker: insert bulbed tube into baby's nostril and suck heartily on the other tube. Nose contents end up tidily in the little reservoir, not in your mouth!

I used it for the first time the other day, and it worked brilliantly at dislodging two giant boogers. "Save them for the scrap-book!" Jason said. Auden smiled and burbled happily.

So I ended up being prepared for yesterday morning's panic:

Auden woke up around 5:30 in a fit. It was not the usual whimpering in his sleep because he's hungry; this was a full-bore cry, a fightened cry that I hadn't heard before. This cry said, something is really wrong.

He sounded congested, like he had a big gob of phlegm half-way between his sinuses and his throat. He couldn't swallow it and couldn't blow it out, but he was crying and gagging and there was snot and milk coming out of his nose. Big fat tears squirted out of his eyes. I picked him up and he pitched his head back and jerked himself around, like he was trying frantically to get away from the awful feeling.

This is a job for the snot sucker! I thought, amazingly not freaking out in the least. I propped him up on a pillow, got the tube in his nose, and sucked fiercely until the offending mucous came free. With his nasal passages clear again, Auden's cry turned into a back-from-the-brink-of-trauma whimper, while I kissed and cuddled and nursed him back to sleep. Then I inspected and marveled the goo in the tube as only a mother can.

The whole thing took less than two minutes, but man! I will not soon forget that cry. Whew.

And since I so cleverly titled this post, go watch this video and see why Flight of the Conchords is my new favorite (not least because they're on bikes. With helmets).

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