It seems like every holiday, something happens that I simply MUST write about because...(because I'm an obsessive over-sharing maniac) because I'm a blogger. Sharing the mundane stuff like this is my life, my passion.
This year, Christmas was full of blog-worthy stuffs to relay to you, gentle reader. Sadly, the majority of it was lost on Christmas morning because that is when tragedy struck.
I'm getting ahead of myself (again).
A Holiday On Hold
The girls each got a new pair of warm, fuzzy, stay-at-home-socks in their Christmas stockings from jolly old Saint Nicholas. They love All Things Soft and Fluffy, so of course they put them on immediately. This is important. Trust me.
After the last present was opened, the plan was for the kids and The Man to clean up the mess from Unwrapaganza while I started a lovely Christmas breakfast for everyone. That plan was rudely interrupted when I heard Lily yell something that derailed our lazy Christmas morning and sent it careening off into a ditch:
"MOM! SAM GOT A SPLINTER!!"
Sam ran through the dining room in the slippery wood-collecting-socks that evil bastard brought for her and when she skidded to a stop, yes indeed, Sam...got a splinter.
If you are a regular reader of my family's tales, you will remember that this has happened before. Many of you are already aware that I have a child who is a magnet for splinters and when she gets one, she doesn't mess around with the tiny stuff that can be gotten out with a simple tweezers or the aid of a needle. No way, no how! When Samantha does it, she goes all out - sliding across the hard-wood floors, yards at a stretch, to see just how much flooring she can strip off in one go. "FIND ALL THE SPLINTERS!" she cries. She also gets these enormous planks embedded so deeply and so securely into her skin that it requires medical attention to retrieve them. THIS was one of those times.
 |
| Yeah, that's not gonna cut it. |
The Waiting is the hardest part
We got to the Convenient Care Clinic, checked Samantha in and began to wait.
And wait...
And wait...
 |
| Three bored children, two parents, one large plank of wood didn't make for a very merry Christmas. At least we were all together...irritated, but together. |
Soon...(what am I saying? Strike that...) After waiting roughly the same amount of time it takes to cook a 20 pound turkey, we were shown to a room where a nurse got the skinny on Sam's allergies (or lack thereof), and a brief run-down of how she came to have a hunk of petrified oak jammed inside her person. When she had enough information, we were then told to follow her to the next room and you'll never guess what happened there!
Aw, you guessed it: more waiting.
So we snapped a picture of the adorable six-year-old's foot to kill some time:
 |
| *pffft* Well, that took all of thirty seconds. What do we do now? |
As if sensing my boredom...irritability...and general impatience that this was taking SO LONG, the more mobile members of Sam's entourage began to play a nifty little game called "TOUCH EVERYTHING!!!" Fun stuff, that game. It's guaranteed to make your mother go abso-fricking-lutely insane in a matter of minutes.
Just when we were sure they had forgotten about us (I have no idea how that was possible, as we are noisy and were cordoned off from the rest of the office by only a curtain), in walked the doctor who would surely save Sam from the stabbing pain of Pinocchio Syndrome and us from the agonizing wait.
He took one look at it and said, sounding much like Gary Cole in Office Space: "Mm...yeah, I think we're going to have to go ahead and, uh...numb that." Well, gee, Bill, do you think so? I mean, look at it. There's nothing to grab on to. Any fool can see that we're going to have to go in after it and one of us may not come out alive. If you want to try that on a frightened six-year-old without Novocaine, be my guest. Just use your Jedi mind trick and we'll be on our way. Moron.
Instead of using The Force, we (Dr. Bill and I) opted to put a topical numbing agent on it so the needle wouldn't be as traumatizing to my six-year-old. Add fifteen more minutes of waiting, this time with Mommy sporting a pair of purple surgical gloves to apply some jelly textured numb-making stuffs to Sam's foot with "gentle PRESSURE" (*sigh* Poor Sam), follow that with Dr. Bill shooting Novocaine into the entry point, and we were ready to begin. ("BEGIN?!" WTH?!) He made a few futile attempts to grab the splinter, but found he was unable to get a good grip on it with the smallest hemostat he had, so after all this time, Good Doctor Nimble Fingers couldn't get the splinter out and he sent us to the hospital emergency room.
Damn. This rivaled last year's splinterectomy debacle in a big, sad way.
At the ER
I am happy to report that after another hour of waiting , an ultrasound on Samantha's foot, two near-fistfights between the Tired and the Hungry, and about a thousand mobile status updates to Facebook, Sam was once again, splinter free. HALLELUJAH!
 | |
| Holy crap! |
By this time, we were an hour late for dinner at my mother's house, so we gathered up Sam, the splinter and the rest of our clan and headed for Nana and Poppa's house, stopping ever-so-briefly at home to grab the presents and the makings of my contribution to our meal (thank God I didn't have to make anything more complex than green bean casserole).
We'll call this next part "Splinter At Large"
When we finally got to my parents' house, Sam immediately wanted to show the splinter to her cousins. Now, after the morning's ordeal, we didn't expect her to actually take the splinter OUT to show it off and we sure as hell didn't expect the splinter to make a break for it, but that's what happened. When she opened the container, it fell. It fell near(?)...under(?)...IN(?)...the cushions of the couch. It was lost. Oh, damn. That's at least a hundred dollar splinter (and probably more, as we have yet to receive the bill from the ER). We wanted to keep it and put it in our shadow box of "Stuff that got stuck in our kids". Shoot. Now it's gone. Bummer.
Was Lost But Now Am Found
I went to my parent's house the day after Christmas to have coffee and in a last-ditch effort, searched the couch cushions once more, to see if I could find that blasted splinter. I picked up a cushion and clapped it once and the splinter fell onto the couch.
*THUD*
Me: No. Freaking. Way. I FOUND IT! QUICK! DAD, GET THE BOTTLE! GET THE BOTTLE!
My Father: Where is it?
Me: It's still in my purse!
My Father: Don't move! I'm on it!
And so we wrangled that splinter into the bottle and closed it up tight. REALLY TIGHT.
 |
| That oughta hold it. |
Once again, the world is safe for Samantha's tender feet. Sort of.
We're getting carpet this spring.
