you will
hurt your baby.
no matter
how hard
you try
at some point
you will do
something that
directly
injures your baby.
it
will be
traumatic.
my day happened
early in february...
vee's fingernails
grow fast
and i use
a pair of
baby scissors
to trim them
but
they do
a piss poor job.
one morning
i was tired
of her grabbing
hunks of my flesh
with her talons...
enough is enough.
i grabbed the
baby nail clippers
that i was afraid
to use
(for fear of hurting her)
and started
to clip
her nails.
i think that
i only got
through
two nails before
i clipped
a chunk of the top
of her finger
with the clippers.
she cried out.
i saw blood.
i was
h o r r i f i e d.
i ran
to get band-aids.
i quickly
bandaged her
injured finger.
there was
a lump
in my throat
and was
on the verge
of tears.
grub told me
to keep calm-
vee was
more freaked
by my behavior
then she was
by her injury.
she seemed fine.
i was traumatized.
i could not
look at her
poor finger
without
feeling like
the worst
person in
the world.
when i emailed
my friends
the photo
i was surprised
by their reactions:
my friend
annemarie said:
ah, now you are a real parent!
every parent has to clip
a baby-finger once in their life.
it is part of the initiation-ritual...
welcome to parenthood!
-annemarie
who has done the same thing,
and so has martijn [her husband]...
martha
chimed in:
that seems to happen to everyone ....
marcin [her husband] hurt luca [their child]
clipping his nails when he was a baby,
and has never done it since
he is still traumatized by it).
i am the nail clipper...
i thought
that i
was the
only horrible mom
that
had done such
a heinous thing.
it was a great
comfort
to know that
i was not alone.
. . . . .
grub made jokes
for weeks
about how
i was not
allowed
to touch
his daughter
because
i had
clipped her...
well,
his turn
came a week ago.
he was zipping
vee into
her bear suit
and got some
of her skin
caught in
the zipper.
boy did
she howl.
it left
a big red mark
on her neck
for days.
it made grub
feel awful.
so we
have been
initiated
into parenthood.
since then
i have heard
of all
the accidental
injuries
our friends
have inflicted
on their kids.
looks like
this is just
the beginning.
oh poor vee!
we are
so sorry vee.
xoxo
love,
your parents
done that several times.
ReplyDeletei am no longer allowed to cut his nails.
kiyomi handles that now.
i havent trimmed his nails in years,
actually, because i was so bad at it.
she has a more delicate touch.
i dropped him from my shoulders once
when he was two.
cracked his head on the pavement.
there was a ton of blood.
i was horrified.
he still has the scar,
but seems to have no permanent damage.
kids are pretty resilient.
joe
ok god yes that happened here. i only used those darn clippers ONCE and then switched to these little ones. now f complains when i cut her toenails - she doesn't like how it feels ;) but at least she can tell me.
ReplyDeletethere was the one time i left her at the top of the stairs while i was climbing down w/ a TON of stuff and i told her to wait for me to climb down and of course she didn't. and fell. right onto a spike of rebar jutting from the ground. black eye - big gushing cut. could have poked her eye out... yeah. bad momma. it happens ;)
My dad shut my hand in the car door when I was about three.
ReplyDeleteI have bonked the Pea's head on the side of the car about 100 times while putting her in the car seat. HWWLLB has done it 200 times at least.
Thank goodness kids are resilient and forgiving.
Fawn and I just had a discussion about the injuries we have inflicted upon our children this past week.
ReplyDeleteJust before I read your post I was supervising Felix as he was sitting up. My hands were not quick enough when he did a face plant. I still feel terrible.
Stefan pinched his finger with the clippers a few weeks ago and has declared that he will never clip his nails again.
I put Felix in a chair that was no longer appropriate for his size. He fell backwards hitting his head on the wood floor.
I could go on and on and my child will only be 5 months tomorrow.
What does that say about me?
I figure it is just the beginning. :)