The Painful (on several levels) Misadventure

Each day as new parents there are new challenges we have to master. One of those we have to do often is trimming finger and toenails. Apparently everything on babies grows like a weed! Sometimes I feel like that's all I get done is trimming nails. But, I digress. My latest misadventure begins with this very task.

On a normal weekend morning I got up with Tyler and got him changed and fed him his morning bottle. He was getting droopy-eyed so we finished the bottle and I let him relax there for a while. He was pretty much asleep so I decided that'd be the best time to cut his nails as I usually do. My first issue is that I couldn't find the nail clippers. I looked in the bathroom, the diaper bag, his bedroom, and finally, I find them in a random box in the kitchen. I remembered later why I'd tossed them in there, but at any rate it took me a while to find them. Luckily Tyler was still lightly dozing so I went ahead and started the nail clipping process. This went as normally as one could hope...at least for 9 fingers.

I finally got to the last finger, one of his thumbs. He's a little awake now, but still dozing so I figure I'll go ahead and finish quickly before he wakes up fully. I slide the clippers over the nail and just as I'm about to clamp down, he startles awake (most babies do this, and it's quite the event if you've ever seen it) and I've already clamped down. The tears and wails start. I've cut his thumb. So, he's all red-faced and screaming now and I'm already feeling bad because I've hurt him (the first time I've actually made him this upset from something I physically did). I finally get ahold of the flailing hand to survey the damage and I see it. I cut the side/top of the skin near the nail. Now blood's trickling everywhere! It's on the baby's pajamas, on me...I'm beginning to get uncomfortable, but not panicking.

My first instinct is to put his finger in my mouth, so I do in hopes of keeping the blood volume down. That's not helping so I grab the burp rag because it's the closest thing I have and wrap up his little hand and hold it. He's still screaming and the mommy guilt is setting in. I'm nearly in tears and his finger is gushing so I take him in the bedroom to my husband, who was sleeping and say, "I need help, I don't know what to do!" He shoots up out of bed and says, "What happened?" I unwrap Tyler's finger and it's still gushing blood. We all head out to the kitchen and run his hand under water. Nothing. Still gushing. We decide that we should elevate his hand and put pressure on it so I get him on the couch and hold his hand up. Luckily at this point, he stops crying. It was almost like magic. I sat there holding his hand up for a long time and I went to look to see how it was doing, and it's still bleeding. Now I'm debating going to the emergency room. But surely baby nail clippers can't do that much damage, right? So we sit a little longer. My husband gets a band-aid; still bleeding. My mind is racing.

How much blood can a baby lose before this gets bad? Do I need to tie it off or something like you see in those movies? Can you even stitch a baby's finger?

Finally, I get it together and still holding the baby's arm up, take another look. Yes! It stopped bleeding! After a few tears of my own, we manage to get some Neosporin on the finger and put one of those newborn cotton mits that you use to keep babies from scratching themselves on it to keep the medicine on. Not a half-hour afte rthe entire incident, Tyler is already laughing and playing and forgetting about what his mommy did to him. Boy, was that a day I'd like to soon forget!

The good news is, just three days later, you can barely tell it happened at all by looking at his finger. Thank goodness babies are so resillient...even when their mommies aren't.

A Misadventures in Mommyhood Moment

Brought to you by the letter "P" for poop!

As you've probably discovered, I'm a new mom. I definitely don't take that job lightly, but it definitely has it's lighter moments. Here is a recent one.

So, on a recent morning I'm doing my hair in the main bathroom of our home. My husband and I have decided that we need to be better adults and maybe try getting up even before our son is awake as opposed to using him as our alarm. What happens when we do that is we tend to already be behind before our day even gets started, so we're both up getting things done. When my son wakes up we take turns getting ready and then switch so the other person can get ready for work. But, I digress.

I'm in the bathroom doing my hair and the door flys open and my husband is standing there with my son. I thought to myself, "What could possibly get them away from their morning Sports Center session?" Then it hit me. The smell of a little gift my son often makes for us. My husband usually brings my son to me when it's time for the big diaper changes and I don't mind but this became funny really fast. He was holding the baby horizontally and when he lifted him away from his body and pulled away the burp rag hung over my son's behind I could see that there was poo-poo on my husband's shirt and pants and all over my son's leg. After I stopped laughing I took over so my husband could go take a shower.

Now, for anyone who has ever dealt with a blow-out you know it's hard to decide where to start. These are zip-up jammies my son is wearing so in order to get the diaper in the first place I have to remove his feet from the little footies of the pajamas. Oh yeah. Not pleasant. So, I'm covered in it, he's covered in it and now my husband is laughing. But we get that all cleaned up and manged to get all wiped down and smelling good. I dress my son and the day goes on as planned...gather up, load up and head to daycare. On our way out the door we decide we need to soak the jammies and throw them in a sink after discovering our washer doesn't really have a soak cycle per-se. You can only imagine what my house smelled like by lunchtime. Let's just say I'll leave it at that!