The picture above is a kinda close-up of Abby’s nose. Those of you who follow Post Irony can see where this is headed. The picture below is a close-up of the button we took out of Abby’s nose tonight. (And a dime for comparison purposes.)

We suspect the button had been in her nose maybe a week. The day after the rock incident Gina said she thought there was something in her other nostril. We had had corn that night and Gina allowed as how there might be a piece of corn in her nose. I looked but didn’t see anything and told Gina she was being too sensitive in light of recent events.

For the last several days, Abby has had a stuffy nose and a hard time sleeping at night. But she never mentioned anything being in her nose. (She had tried to tell Gina about the rock in her nose and it took a couple of hours for Gina to figure out what she was saying.) After Abby’s bath tonight Gina tipped Abby’s head back to look at a sore on the side of her nose. She got a good view way back in there and spotted something white.

We got the tweezers and a flashlight and laid Abby on the bed in the guest bedroom and attempted to extract the item. We didn’t know it was button at the time and she wasn’t talking about it. She screamed and thrashed around. I realized we were in front of the window. Anybody looking in would be justified in thinking he was seeing two grownups trying to lobotomized a baby through the nose. We moved to the back bedroom and closed the blinds.

I put on my spelunker’s headlamp so i could get a good look and two tries later pulled the button out. She claims there’s nothing left up in there, but I want to get her head x-rayed to make sure.

The picture above is a kinda close-up of Abby’s nose. The picture below is a close-up of the rock we took out of Abby’s nose tonight. (And a dime for comparison purposes.)

When Gina picked Abby up from the day care, Abby kept talking about something that had her pretty worked up. Gina thought she was saying she wanted to go for a walk, something she talks about regularly. But Abby kept saying no, a walk was not what she interested in. Gina told her she couldn’t understand her and Abby dropped it.

They came home and Abby took a short nap and then got up and Gina fixed her something to eat. Abby continued talking about something that sounded like “walk.” She was saying “rock,” as we now know, but she doesn’t say her R’s very well.

Her breathing was loud and somewhat labored, so Gina thought her nose was stuffy and she tried to use the suction bulb on her. Then she tried to get Abby to blow into a tissue, but every time Gina touched her nose, Abby would cry.

Finally, Gina asked Abby if she was saying “rock” and Abby said yes and Gina instantly knew what the problem was. I had just gotten off the treadmill and was trying to recover from what felt like a stroke when Gina came in and said, “We have a serious problem.” We laid Abby on her back on the bathroom counter, and, despite her protestations, I extracted the rock with a pair of tweezers.