I Wish...

...I could say that I love ALL of my son, unconditionally, but that would be a lie.

I don't love his fingernails.

Actually, I have no problem with his cuticles or nail beds. I just don't like the part that grows past his fingertips. Other than that, I think he's fabulous. I don't mind his toenails, just his fingernails. I don't mind when he burps his formula breath in my face...I don't mind that he gets spit-up in the chubby folds of his neck and that it's smelly...I don't mind that he has stinky man farts...I don't mind his poopy diapers...I don't mind that he's managed to spit-up down my shirt...and I don't mind that when he was just a few weeks old he peed on my face. I figure all those things are par for the course since he's a baby. Any other baby and I might be a bit grossed out - but since it's my baby, I see it as all in a day's work.

But his fingernails...ohhh...those I despise.

They scratch me. They scratch him. THEY GROW.

I managed to ignore them for a while...but at his first pediatrician appointment when he was ten days old, the pediatrician said to Gabe "Mommy needs to cut your fingernails". (side note - why did he address this comment to me? why?!? does Bret not look perfectly capable of playing manicurist?) So I responded, rather vaguely, with "Yeah...I know...I need to get to that...they're just so small...it's scary..." And then the pediatrician says, deadpan: "Well you'll be sorry when he scratches his cornea and gets an eye infection."

?!?!?!?!

I'm sorry, WHAT????

Then, because though he had his back to me, he must have known my silence was because I couldn't form coherent words as a response, he said "You can just bite them off if you'd rather."

So two days later, on the same day Gabriel was circumcised (oh, the irony), I cut his fingernails for the first time.

In the car, while he was asleep.

Now, I understand that the car might not seem like the best place to cut tiny baby fingernails for the first time (and in fact Bret questioned my logic emphatically), but I had decided that no smack-talking pediatrician was going to make snide, guilt-trip attempting comments to me. Bite his nails off...HA! That would be the easy way out! I was going to be business-like and confident. And I had safety infant nail clippers. What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing! Nothing went wrong! It was smooth sailing. Textbook. Instructional video worthy.

And so the next time Gabe needed his nails trimmed, and we weren't even in a moving vehicle, I was calm, cool, and collected. I had done this before, with fabulous results. What could possibly go wrong?

And then I cut the tip of Gabe's thumb off.
It was horrible. H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E. He started crying, I started crying, his thumb bled profusely, then his finger started bleeding because apparently I'd cut him there too, before the thumb, just not as much so it hadn't instigated the crying fit like the thumb did.
Did I mention it was H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E?
So I threw the safety nail clippers across the room and told Bret I would no longer be cutting Gabe's fingernails and instead I would just bite them off. Darn pediatrician. (side note - in my rational mind, I understand that the pediatrician had nothing to do with what happened. but still. darn pediatrician.)
The thing is, biting them off is not an exact science. It can take a few bites on a nail to get all of it, and it leaves scraggly and uneven edges. So lately I have discovered that regular fingernail clippers, without the plastic guide on them, work wonderfully.



I can actually see where the bottom of the clippers are under Gabe's nail because they're dark silver, and so I am again clipping with cool-headed confidence.
Except that I tend to hold Gabe's little fingers in a death grip so that he won't move them while I'm clipping his nails.
And except that I hold my breath before I can actually squeeze the clippers to make a cut.
Oh, and except the fact that it takes me 10 minutes to clips his nails because I am so paranoid about not cutting his fingertips again.
But other than that...total confidence.