It's Father's Day tea at my grandparents house. A norm for all special occasions in our family. We'd have lunch at our individual homes and then gather around 16:00 at the 'head quarters' for some chit chat, and more often than not, controversial topics around the delightful table of treats.
How did I think the new addition to the great grandchild list would be excluded from the heated debates? Of course little blocked-nose Elijah needed to be nursed back to health, I was just waiting for him to awake and start screaming for everyone to hear his snore. Low and behold, he entered the lions den in the arms of my aunt. Lying quite peacefully, no one had yet noticed, until seconds later it began, the familiar sound of his snoring cry. The chatting stopped and all the attention had shifted focus to little Elijah.
'Oh no! He has a cold', was the obvious concern. 'Yes a BLOCKED NOSE, not really a cold', I replied. In no time at all was I bombarded with remedies, from pure Vaseline on the bridge of his nose, to heated castor oil on his forehead, or perhaps one part Vicks to two parts Vaseline rubbed on his chest. Did I mention his only 7 weeks old, and that in the past two weeks of my son having a blocked nose I've heard more advice about blocked noses than in my 27 years of existence. As a matter of fact, I've been getting advice from just about everyone. What do I take and what do I toss?
As I sat holding Elijah while my one aunt, mother of two, adamantly picked boogers out of his tiny nostrils, my other aunt, older and qualified nurse, explained how she only ever heard of drinking castor oil if you were constipated and that it would only make everything sticky. There goes that idea I thought, especially since I had just been to the pharmacy to get it and had put it on his forehead before we arrived. So yes, I sat there and nodded and returned home with my little booger boy. And I did take my 81 year old grandmother's advice this time around about castor oil. I'll try it, and if I don't succeed, I'll move on and try something new. As if I have a choice.
