Just blow it out already

A little while ago, Tucker crawled into my bed complaining that his throat hurt. He's really congested and for some reason he can't or won't explain, it never occurs to him to blow the congestion out. I mean, why get rid of it when you can pack it all up in your nose and sinuses and be miserable for a few days?!

One of the many problems with that is, of course, that then the stuff has to go somewhere. At night when he's lying down, it's trying to drain which in turn makes him cough. Which makes some of that gunk attempt to relocate which causes more coughing.

This what I hear on my end:
Sniiiiiiif. Cough. Cough. Coughcoughcough. Moan. Sniiiiiif. Sniiiiiiiiiiiif. Cough. Coughcoughcoughcough. Sniff. Snort. Sniiiiiiif. Coughcoughcoughcough.

After about 30 minutes of this, I'm gritting my teeth. So I sit up and ask him to please, fortheloveofuninterruptedsleep, blow his nose. I even hand him the tissue.

He's tired and I know he doesn't feel well, so he's whiny. Unfortunately, Sara is almost always whiny so I have very limited patience with whiny. I insist that he blow his nose. 'Just DO it!!!' And as he always does when he doesn't want to blow his nose, which is everytime, he shoves the tissue practically up into his nasal openings and gives a halfhearted blow. And, also as usual, then he says, "See? I blew my nose and nothing came out." Only he says it in a whiny voice (nails on a chalkboard anyone?) and it comes out like this: "Seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee? I bleeeeeeewwwwww my nooooooooooooose and noooooooooothiiiiiiiiiing came oooooooouttttt."

Per usual, I then grab a tissue and hold it in front of his nose and say "blow, please."

blow


Nononono. "Blow harder, Tucker"

blow 

"A little harder."

blow

"Hard!"

::intake of breath::

BLOW

Awesome. Now lather, rinse, repeat.  Times eight.

At the end of it, I've got a huge handful of tissues filled with, well, snot, plus a nice amount on me (gross), and a kid that can actually...wait for it....

breathe. through. his. nose.

Go figure.

I go throw away the tissues, wash from fingertip to elbow, and start to head back to bed as I give him a silent but stern lecture:

See? Now really, how hard was that? I don't understand why this is so difficult for you. Seriously, I don't. Just blow your nose. Just blow it. Blow! Blowity blowity blow. Don't you feel much better after you do it? 

And now I'm too awake and can't go back to sleep.

Tucker, on the other hand, is sleeping beautifully.