My kid the genius.

I picked the Kid up from school a while back and drove home. We went through our usual evening routine, which culminates in bath and stories in bed.

So I was lying down with a Frannie K. Stein propped on my chest when the Kid sat up on her knees and said, "Mommy! Look!" I looked, and looked, at her torso, her hands, and up into her face, which hovered over me. She was wearing a wicked smile, so I knew I was supposed to look for something gross or inappropriate, but damned if I could see anything out of the ordinary.

"Mommy, look!" She pointed at her nose. It looked like a fine little nose to me, but I studied it carefully. Then I saw that the inside of her right nostril looked shiny and white, while the inside of her left nostril looked pink and snotty.

"What the heck?" I reached up and pinched her left nostril closed. "Blow!" She took a deep breath and blew, and a large, slimy navy bean shot out of her nose with the force of a small-caliber bullet and nearly blinded me. Oh, how she laughed and laughed. She held her little belly and laughed until tears streamed down her face.

Apparently her class had done some sort of project requiring the gluing of navy beans earlier in the day, and she had taken the opportunity to stuff the biggest bean she could find up her nose. Then she couldn't figure out how to get it out again. Having a giant bean up her nose for 10 hours didn't seem to bother her in the least -- no, it was pure entertainment! Firing it into my eye at the end was a totally unexpected bonus.