The Toe Chronicles

I've been truly too insanely busy to blog lately and  while this is a purely recreational sport for me (well maybe more of an intellectual activity, the only thing that is getting much exercise is my fingers) I always wish I could update more often. I keep running across these truly spectacular blogs that update several times a week or even daily (!) Just finding the time and mental energy to bang out that many blog entries makes me tired even thinking about it, so for those of you who actually read this ramble fest... I'm sorry, but I highly doubt that I'll ever be a daily blogger. Plus there just so many other things to cram into my daylight hours. Namely taking care of children (and all that entails) and every once in while I'll take a crack at the scary laundry pile or sweep the floor (housekeeping obviously isn't my forte... I'm working on that). And then, my favorite time of day: bedtime. I have several precious hours of silence and I either play on Facebook (sadly I spend way too much time on there) read another book, or maybe blog. Today I obviously chose the latter.

Baby Toe Rings

Mommy, why are you waving shiny sharp things at me?

Last night, Kiki suffered a traumatic event. To be more accurate, Mommy was traumatized, Kiki  felt just fine. Due to the fact that the child NEVER stops wiggling and LOVES pulling/chewing on/depositing spit up in hair, she somehow managed to get a hair tightly wrapped around her little toe. This isn't the first time that this has happened, and normally (with some impressive tweezers/ pin/ nail clipper skills) I can unwind the offending hair. This time she managed to really wedge it in there.

The offending mermaid hair

I got her up from her afternoon nap and noticed her toe was a really abnormal shade of bright red and there was a deep line around the top that obviously didn't belong there. Of course my heart stopped and I immediately began freaking out. Kiki (after her obligatory post nap feeding) was perfectly content and all smiles. I took a deep breath, gathered my shiny scary looking instruments and warned her "I"m truly sorry baby, this is gonna hurt". She grinned at me, utterly oblivious to the imminent pain. Cue Mommy Guilt.

As I began to poke around her misshapen toe, I realized we were in trouble. In the past, the hair had always been very noticeable. I have pretty dark hair and against her (mostly) Irish skin, I'd have to be blind not to see it. This time around, there wasn't a hair to be seen. After 30 minutes of investigation, a tiny blond hair finally showed up. Ellie (with her crazy long mermaid hair that she refuses to let me cut) was the culprit this time. I got the hair off and hoped and prayed that her pretty little baby toes would stop looking so alienesque.

Dancing (into the ER) with my Two Left Feet

Fast forward several hours and she woke up around 10 pm to eat (again) and I checked the toe again. Much to my horror, it still looked scarily swollen and segmented. I reluctantly decided that an Emergency Room visit was in order. Now due to my extreme klutziness, I have spent more than my fair share of time in the ER. For example, when I was 7 months pregnant with Kiki, I was leaving the bookstore (typical) and walking back to the car. Keep in mind this was a parking lot, a very flat parking lot, and somehow (don't ask me how) my foot slipped on a nonexistent bump. Can you see how this story is going to end? My foot freaking hurt, but I made it back to the car. I almost exchanged PG-13 words with the group of teenage boys who had witnessed my graceless moment and the juvenile chuckling wasn't going over well with the pregnant woman in pain. Lucky for them, I was concentrating too hard on reaching the car without falling on my face.

We drove home. I sat in the passenger seat gritting my teeth and promising God all kinds of crazy things if He would just make the big owwie go away. ("Dear God, I'll be good forever. I'll never ever lose my temper again. I'll never ever wear flip flops on a flat surface. I'll never ever lose my patience with my kids or let my hormones get the best of me. I promise. Just make it stop. Pretty please? With a jar of cherries on top?")  My husband thought he was in trouble and I was mad at him because I was so silent (in reality I was too busy begging God for a supernatural Vicodin and if I had talked I might have screamed). We got home, I hopped (literally) into the house and claimed the couch.

And I refused to go to the ER.

Surprise!

I simply couldn't believe that a person could possibly break a bone walking on a flat surface. After four hours of whining, my husband convinced me that I should probably get it checked out, so I reluctantly hopped into the ER. (Hopping played a large role in my life for the next few months.)  I'm sure anyone who has gone to the ER can empathize with the awful waiting time, and this time was no different. I might be a horrible person, but I spent my 2.5 hour wait watching the man next to me moan, cry, and literally fall on the floor and dramatically writhe in pain. Now I have no doubt that he was in pain and I really did feel sorry for him, but he was so over the top that it was impossible not to watch. The whole ER was watching him. There is a reason why men don't give birth.

Long story short, my foot was broken, I was given a very sexy cast and sent home with a pair of crutches. I abhor crutches. After my toe slicing incident, I was not looking forward to the hop, shuffle repeat routine while 7 months pregnant. Ellie and Maya were infinitely amused by mommy's new style of walking and spent an endless amount of time hopping behind me chanting "Mommy hop, hop, hop hahahahahha". To add to my dilemma, my husband was getting ready for his deployment to Afghanistan and we were moving to Ohio. Packing up a house and crutches don't mix. On the plus side, I have never received so many pitying looks from strangers or had so many doors opened for me. After 6 endless weeks of the plaster cast, the kind doctor allowed me a walking cast and I had the most blissful shower of my life. In fact, I'm pretty sure it ranked in the top 5 showers of my life (the others were probably after breaking my arm and giving birth). I've never been more excited to scrub my leg. Anyhow, this was a huge tangent.  The point is I'm klutzy. In fact I should probably win awards for my klutziness.

Operation Hairball

I love you, I love you, you love me!

Back to our Kiki story, we walked into the ER and I was prepared to wait hours and hours with a fussy child. Thankfully everyone proved me wrong. We were in and out of the ER in under and hour and Kiki has never been more charming in her life. Every person that crossed her path was graced with her benevolent smiles and coos. I'm pretty sure she was just thrilled to be out of bed and was determined to do everything in her power to stay that way. I also think she suffers from Youngest Child Syndrome and was just loving all the undivided attention that was being poured on her. After our speedy admissions process and a liberal dose of nurse admiration, the doctor came and examined the toe. Kiki smiled the whole time. Six nurses crowded into the room just to watch the doctor pull out the mad scientist magnifying goggles and poke my kid's toe. The doctor spent some time quizzing me on how the hair had gotten there in the first place. Obviously I had no clue. I mean what did he expect me to say? Oh you know doc, we play this really fun game, I roll her around in a hair ball and we see how fast she can twist the hair around her digits. The real fun part starts when we race to see how fast I can get the hair off of her fingers and toes. Geesh.

Totally chilling in the hospital bed

After much examination, it was determined that there wasn't anything on her toe anymore and the hair had been so tight that the poor kid's toe had gotten a cut. We were dismissed with neosporin and instructions to "remove hair from her environment".  He suggested a lint brush. I'm still mildly offended. 

So Kiki still has a really strange looking toe and I'm still concerned. I thought about putting a picture up here, but it looks nasty, I realize that most people aren't interested in being grossed out.  Hopefully things will go back to normal soon because whether she knows it not, it's nice having 10 toes and I'm pretty sure she'll need them in the future.

 On an entirely unrelated note, besides the 4 Christmas parties and Kiki's baptism, we also have 3 family birthdays around Christmas. Ellie and Maya's new favorite song is "Happy Birthday" and we are serenaded about 25 million times day. Happy bbbbburrfffdaayyyy tooooo yooouuuu!!!!!