Last night as Owen was talking about the following morning, his first official day to go to elementary school (yesterday was the entrance ceremony which I’ll write about later); he said he wanted french toast and natto.  Anything for the school boy on his first day!  Natto, as most of you know, is fermented beans.  They smell terrible.  (Read an earlier blog entry on natto here). French toast and natto.  What a combination.

So, this morning, when I got up Eric and Owen were already eating rice and natto.  What a start to the day!  I was thrilled things had already gotten started- less time I would have to smell it.  He passed on the french toast – the natto had filled him up.

We got him off to his first day — with a few little hidden tears on my part — and I was ready for the day.

Annie woke up and decided that she, too, wanted natto.  So Eric served her.  I was in the living room when I heard Annie scream “it’s stuck up my nose!  It’s stuck up my nose!”  I thought she was joking.  I saw Eric get down on his knees and check out her nostrils.  I didn’t even want to ask.  When he assured me it wasn’t a joke, I started gagging.  It was a natto bean.  Slime and all.  Stuck up her nose.

She had taken a tissue to wipe off the sticky beans stuck on the edge of her mouth, and in one up-swing motion had somehow gotten one stuck.  In her nose.

 I got a washcloth and tried to wash it out. It took a LOT of nose blowing for her to get the smell out.  I tried not to gag but to be a real mom.  I just never knew that natto could get stuck up a nose.  Only in Japan.