If you are ever asked whether or not God has a sense of humor, the answer is – YES !!!

An emphatic YES!!!

See, God blessed me with two girls.  Proving that God has a sense of humor.

GIRLS !!!  I don’t have baseball players, I’ve got girls !!!

Thank goodness I have another girl in the house, Lisa.  For without Lisa, phew…. I’d be in bad shape.

I know even less about raising girls than I know about girls in general.

I’m getting better.

But girls are a whole different animal.

And teenage girls….  Ugh….

I finally got my truck radio fixed.  I had to replace the battery, and when disconnected, it messed up the radio and it needed the code, which of course I didn’t have.

               *Side Note 1 – much like passwords, these are the bane of my existence.

So, being I’ve been riding around with no audio entertainment, it’s just been me and my thoughts.

               *Side Note 2 – my thoughts aren’t as deep as you might think.

BUT – something did occur to me the other day as I was driving around Sussex County.

For some reason I started thinking about ‘Welcome Back Kotter’.

I was remembering an incident that happened with Charlotte quite some time ago.

               *Side Nite 3 – Charlotte won’t get mad at this story because she never reads my blog.

Charlotte has always been a pistol.  Where as Kate (my oldest) is a ‘rule-follower’, Charlotte might not break the rules, but let’s just say Charlotte is a ‘rule-bender’ or a ‘rule-tester’

Some time ago, I began noticing a bad odor around Charlotte when she was just a baby.

Well, maybe not a baby, but very little.

I’m not talking about an odor caused by a diaper that needed changing.

No, this was something different.

Something foul.

We bathed her regularly and she was always clean, but this odor was something else.  It came and went, but when it came – WOW.

One morning as I was dropping her off at her day-care place, I leaned into the back seat to get her out of her car seat and WOWSER – there it was. 

It hit me like a slap in the face.

I had just given her a bath the night before and she had on a clean diaper.  But – WOW.

               *Side Note 4 – I remember George Carlin when he joked, “Marge, bad breath is one thing, but you could knock a buzzard off a shit wagon”

I took her inside and was quick to alert the kind and understanding lady about this horrible stench and she just said “ok” and went about getting Charlotte settled in.

She was friendlier with Lisa than myself and when picking up Charlotte, she let Lisa know that she’s smelled this before and we might want to look up Charlotte’s nose.

Now, it’s been about 12 years since this happened, so the details might be off.

Ok – something was definitely up the nose.

Charlotte has a history with the Dr.’s office we use.  There was among other things, the Hair Tourniquet Incident of 2012. 

               *Side Note – that was something

So we got her to the Dr. office and something was definitely up her nose, and they proceeded to remove it.

You know how when you watch a magician, and he has the never ending handkerchief that he just keeps pulling out and it never seems to end?

Well, that’s what this was.  It just kept pulling out of her nose.  And being it had been lodged up her nose, it was causing a bloody mess as it had been pressing against the inside of her nose and starting to pull off when it was removed.

Charlotte, if memory serves, didn’t complain too much.

And mystery solved – that was the source of the smell.  It had lodged in her nose and gotten a bit infected.

But what in the world?

We had no idea what it was. 

It was black and long and something of a soft-ish piece of, well, not sure what it was a piece of.

So while the mystery of the smell was solved, it was now a whole new mystery.

A week or so later, the smell occurred again.

Jeez.

So we got a flash light out and looked up her nose and SON OF A – something was lodged up there again.

Lisa and I used tweezers and gently pulled out this small black piece of foam. 

But wait, there was more… there was another small piece of black foam.

Okay – starting to make sense.  The large piece removed from the Dr. Office, wasn’t 1 piece, but rather was several small pieces that had attached to each other, and to her nose.

Now, do I tell you what it is/was, or do I leave this post on a cliff-hanger and have you read my next post to find out what it was.

Being I’ve been crazy hectic and busy lately, I’ll not have you tune in to find out what it was, for I’m not sure when I’ll have time for another post.

Well, we were quite puzzled.  I’m not sure who it was that figured out what it was, might have been me, might have been Lisa.  It’s been 12 years.

But ….. wait for it …. Charlotte, as she rode in her car seat, was reaching back and pulling small pieces of foam off the back of her car seat and, yes, putting the pieces up her nose.  It’s quite possible she also ate some, we’ll never know.

Charlotte survived and we joke with each other, “Parents of the Year”.

These girls are a handful.  However, I have an ace in the hole, a mother who knows what to do.

We also have a great pediatrician.

Charlotte likes to keep us on our toes.

Just recently, she decided she wanted to learn the cello.  So she started lessons and we’ve gotten her a cello, we pick it up tomorrow.

I already checked it out – no black cushioning.

We got that going for us.

And remember I was thinking about ‘Welcome Back Kotter’ and then told a story about Charlotte?

Aw come on, you know how 1 thing led to another.

You don’t?

Sure you do.

You know, their signature burn line ….

“Up your nose with a rubber hose”

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