Boogers and Birthdays

I am going to talk about boogers. Seriously, half of this post is about ugly little boogers that disturb our peace. Those little yuckies that get stuck in our nose at crucial moments of our lives and make it impossible for us to look at the world straight in the eye.  I'll bet you have caught one or two people, out on the streets, waiting at the traffic signal or at a restaurant even in the nasty act of trying to hide away, uproot, and finger out the ugly little booger.

Anika in Gramma's Glasses.Happy Birthday dear baby girl!

If you were at home with us yesterday, you would have caught the husband and I in this very same act of trying to tackle the booger in our little ones button nose. To start off, I was the culprit , I was feeding her a banana last evening and when she bit in, a wee bit of it got stuck in her nose. I thought I cleaned it out but after a whole hour, when the husband and I were playing peekaboo with her we saw it again, right there, staring down at us and laughing out loud to come-a-chasing.

I don't know what it is about these booger things. Yes, they are social outcasts, a real taboo to be seen with in public. My husband and I took turns putting our giant sized fingers into our baby's little nose every time we came to glance at it. I know me, my rising levels of desire to set things "just right", to keep every thing perfect hinders me endlessly.  My desires are like a toddlers', what I want, I want. But this urge to tackle and be done with taking the booger out of our innocent play not just plagued  me, my husband, who I consider to be a very hands-off person (pun intended) got down on his knees and hands tying to uproot it too.

Oh the rising desires within us for a perfect life! My daughter who was laughing and playing was outraged by our obsession and our rising need to fix what she thought was perfectly alright. She was not disturbed by the booger mind you. She in fact was breathing just fine and insisting that we come back to play. I kept watching this rising level of need in me and my husband, yes, its a booger but why am I so obsessed with cleaning it away this moment?


After what we thought was victory we went back to playing with Anika. After a couple of minutes I saw Anika rub her nose and then sneeze....and what do I see? Yes! dear mister yucky that I thought was out had finally found its way out now! 


Yes, boogers teach me life lessons. As my daughter turns a year old today, I hope to let her deal with the ugly little boogers of her life while continually trying to adjust my perceptions of what should be. I hope to be the ground she needs to explore from and deepen and widen her mind's eye and I hope to let the boogers just be-in my life and in her's and let them come away in its own due course.

Happy Birthday baby girl!