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Tuesday, June 29, 2004

SPLINTER AAAUUGGHHH!!!

Just had the terribly unpleasant experience of having to pull a 5/8" sliver out of C's foot. Oh man. It took about fifteen minutes, and much of the time she was screaming like we were torturing her (and, well, from what I remember about having other people take splinters out of me, that's not far off). I was holding her and trying to use my body to block her view of Daddy and the tools he was using. T took over the actual removal early on, at my request, because he is so much steadier-handed than I am. Meanwhile I was stroking her head and singing to her and just generally trying to put her in a happy place, which actually helped, a little -- thinking about swimming lessons worked the best. I ended up using labor pain management techniques to help keep her from thrashing around. Hey, those lessons should go to some use, after all... I didn't end up needing them. Even the cats were getting in on the action -- Molly, who thinks a good ear-licking will fix anything, was doing her best to make the screaming stop, and Mary, who is normally a little leery of the kids, was rubbing up against her cheek. My respect for those pesky, destructive, cute little varmints went up several notches, I must say. Everyone except the cats needed ice cream afterward. With whipped cream.

And of course this is prime fodder for C's pity-me attitude. We just asked her how she was feeling, and she said it was hurting just as bad as ever. When we pointed out that she wasn't screaming, at least, she said, "I'm only screaming inside my head. Because I'm not supposed to scream outside my head." Little nut.