Splinter

Yesterday we took the girls to the Fort Worth Zoo. It's a great place! They ran around as expected, waved at the critters, and generally were well behaved. However, all was not bliss on that day. While running her hand along one of the fences, the youngest suddenly came to a halt, looked at her hand, and started to cry. She had picked up about 5 splinters in 3 fingers, and one of them was enormous. Great! My parents and I soothed her, and I took a better look since I was the only one of the 3 who could see without a magnifying glass. I succeeded in immediately extracting one small splinter, but the rest were buried in pretty well. The decision was made to leave well enough alone until we could get the necessary tools at home, and to hasten through the remainder of the zoo.

Just so you know, splinters in the hand of a 4 year old = inability to walk. She gave me the saddest little face, whimpered a little bit, sniffed back some little tears behind her bifocals, and said "Aunt Gigi, can you pick me up?" in the most grief stricken, quavery tones imaginable. God, why did you design them to be so gosh darn cute?!

As soon as we got in the car, she passed out pretty quick and slept until we arrived home. My parents decided that I was the most qualified person to remove the offending foreign bodies, so I prepared my instruments: an alcohol soaked cotton ball and one sterilized sewing needle. I'll say this, she was a trooper. For about 3 seconds. Then I was treated to soul rending sobs as I extracted the little bastards from her hand. The happy ending is that Snoopy bandaids make life a lot better, and she has forgotten the whole thing.