No More Nose Jokes

I'm fairly certain I traumatized my daughter last night. What seemed like a funny joke turned out to be not so funny and I spent the rest of the night wading through Mommy Guilt. Yet again we thought we were hilarious coming up with creative antics to curb Em's habit of putting her finger in her nose. I told her, "That's yucky!" and she found my reaction hilarious enough to repeat the action over and over again. We were sitting at the dinner table, of course, which made the behavior that much more gross.

Daddy: "If you pick your nose, we'll have to take it off!"
Mommy: "That's right!"
(Emily proceeds to smile and dig)
Mommy: "Uh-oh! Look! I've got your nose!"

Emily... freaked... out. You know the joke -- Thumb between index and middle finger, awe-struck child wondering how on earth that's possible... Except that's not what happened. My kid looked up at me with sheer terror in her eyes then immediately touched her face with a deep look of concern regarding her missing nose! I panicked and pretended to put her nose back. "Here! All better! Just pretending!!" Too late. At that point Emily was on the verge of tears repeatedly telling me, "NO! You DON'T take my nose!"

Bad mommy. Apparently 2 is a little young for that joke. Who knew??