You May Think It's Funny But It's Snot

I do love preschool. But if I had to, had to, lodge one teensy, tiny complaint about it, it would be that ever since Berit started school both she and Marta have a perpetually goopy nose. You might notice it on the left there, nevermind the dinner around the mouth. (The goofy look is the result of playing for a very long time in front of the computer camera before actually snapping any photos.)

Anyway, it's not even as though my kids have a runny nose -- it's this completely alien substance, green but not in an infected way, just... just green and sticky, like a plug that their immune systems have ordered up to combat all the new germs Berit is meeting in preschool. It's gross, and worse, it's impossible to get rid of. After blowing the nose, wiping the nose, peeling it out and trying my damndest to scrape it away, all while holding the head of the child with the goopy nose still with my fifth and sixth hands, I turn to throw away the kleenex and like magic, it's back. 

For the most part it just sits there, plugging them up and grossing me out. But every now and then, say, when we meet a new family or when we run into my OB's wife or our priest, or God forbid that mom who's really, really, really nervous about other kids' germs, the slime starts to ooze down the bridge between their noses and lips (sidenote: Berit calls this her "Bem."), all neon green and scary like, threatening to infect any and all children within a sneezing radius with the swine flu. 

Have I mentioned that Berit throws tantrums about blowing her nose? So, awesome.