dr. mommy to the rescue!

maggie got a splinter in the bottom of her foot today. it was tiny, and at first i couldn't see anything, so i figured it was just a tiny scratch on her foot. but then about 15 minutes later, her body had pushed it out just enough to see it. barely, because it was so tiny. there was enough sticking out that i could get it with tweezers, and i asked nina to sit by her head and talk to her to distract her. she was totally willing, until she realized that i was going to pull the splinter out. then, she wailed, "no! don't do it! i can't watch!" and ran upstairs. this did not help maggie calm down.

so i decided instead to put maggie in the tub, in the hopes that the splinter would just fall out. nina couldn't even talk about it, except to say that she wished it was her with the splinter so maggie didn't have to go through it. what an incredible sweetie! mind you, maggie was totally fine. she only cried briefly when she got it, and briefly when it started to poke out and hurt (which is how we discovered it was there). mostly she didn't seem to notice or care. and it was so small that if it wasn't sticking out of her foot, perpendicular to her skin, i probably would have just left it.

well, it didn't fall out in the tub, but i could tell it was just barely in, and i knew a quick pluck would painlessly remove it. nina didn't want to be there, so she left the tub. i just hid the tweezers from maggie's sight and she didn't bat an eye when i pulled it out. there couldn't have been more than half a millimeter of it below the skin.

it was definitely more difficult for nina than for maggie!