Lego is banned

So here's a top tip.

If you ever find yourself in the middle of a mind-numbingly dull day, the kind where relentless horizontal sheets of rain make outside play - or indeed any plans at all - completely redundant, try this simple short cut to instant drama.

NB: This works best if you are 2 years old or thereabouts...but don't let me be the one to spoil your fun.

• Take 1 minute lego piece. The smaller the better. Colour optional - we liked red.
• Insert into a nasal passage. Push until you are certain the lego is well and truly installed deep in the recesses of your nasal tubes.
• Attempt to blow it out.
• Discover you can't do this without the aid of some serious medical equipment, not just an improvised wooden skewer wrapped in loo paper affair.
• Panic. Scream. Etc.

This was how my son brightened up our day earlier this week. Perhaps I would have been more sympathetic if he hadn't done the same trick with a small sticker 2 days earlier. That time we were lucky. Perhaps the tacky surface adhered to some nasal hairs and so was easier to retreive. Maybe those teeny tiny lego pieces are just perfectly shaped to fit ever-so-snugly in a child's nose.

In any case, I was not amused. Especially when I realised that we were getting nowhere with my home-made lego-retrieval device and would have to cancel a lovely afternoon with our dear friends, who were due round to play any minute. Leaving urgent voicemails on various machines, we dashed to the car (in the rain-cum-sleet) and set off for the hospital. I did consider leaving the lego to work its own way out (like a splinter, right?) but my little chap was so distressed by having a foreign body taking up residence, despite it being his own handiwork, that I felt I had to do something constructive. In between cursing him and the invention of lego alternately.

Although we had an 1.5hr wait at A&E, he and Big Sister couldn't have been happier. Whilst I sat in the waiting room, twiddling my thumbs and brooding about the afternoon we could have been having, they had a toy kitchen to play with, colouring, new books and, best of all, a water machine. When we were eventually seen by a lovely, patient, friendly doctor (making up for all my irritation and making me feel thoroughly inadequate as a mother), the errant piece of plastic was removed in about 1 minute, tops. There was a little intense screaming (mostly from my son) but a plush new teddy bear with a beautiful blue satin bow soon diverted him from the minor passing trauma.

All in all, I think he felt it was a pretty passable day. Even the rain had an up side as it meant Mummy had to carry him, swaddled in her coat, at a highly amusing jog all the way from the car park to A&E with rain dripping into her eyes, down her back and turning her hair into rats' tails. Then, oh how funny they'd closed the usual entrance for renovation (who renovates A&E?!!), so off again all the way round to the main hospital. Ha ha ha.

Now I'm worried that anytime we have a less than exciting day lined up, he'll start edging towards the lego. If he can find it that is...

Then last night, I found him inserting something into another to-remain-nameless orifice in the bath. Is this a stage or just little boys? I think I scared him by saying that the doctors would have to chop it off if anything got stuck up there. Even 2 year olds realise that's a vital bit of kit they can't afford to lose.