My Phobia Her Snot

My poor Ella is teething. Her eye teeth are coming in and as a consequence she has snot. Lots and lots of snot, we are wallowing in snot here. Here’s the part where I discuss the snot, those of you who are squeamish may want to look away. It’s the kind that is clear and runny, like a river down her little lip. I could spend the day chasing her and wiping her nose every four seconds until her upper lip is raw and red and chapped or I can let it run and she will lick it off the top of her lip with her tongue and wipe it off with her sleeve and her upper lip will get red and chapped and irritated. It’s not really a win-win here, and she won’t let me put any lotion on, it probably stings. She covers her nose and cries “NooooOOOoooo, my boogers!” I need to hold her down and smear her upper lip with cocoa butter.

This is more my phobia about snot than anything else. I was a snotty kid. I had hay fever that always hit at the beginning of the school year, so every school picture from Kindergarten to about fourth grade has me in it looking like a little crack head. My upper lip chapped and red from the endless snot, I would take Benadryl for kids and always looked a little stoned. I’d have the crazy wild hair despite my parent’s morning combing; it only took one summersault or my winter hat to make it look like a muskrat that had gone though the dryer. On top of all that I wore glasses and was hopelessly pale. These photos are a nice reminder of how crunchy crusty and sore my upper lip always was or maybe how miserably unpopular I was.

So you see looking at Ella’s snotty face makes me deeply uncomfortable way down into my psyche uncomfortable. The only comfort I can give Ella (and me) is by holding her down and shoving an eye dropper full of cherry Tylenol into her mouth and then giving her a hot bath and slathering on the cocoa butter all over her face and letting her stay in jammies all day. Later I’ll warm up soup that she won’t eat because her mouth hurts. Arrrg.