When you decide to become a parent there are some things that you expect. You expect to have to deal with diapers and potty training and tantrums and piano lessons and carpooling and a million other things. The reality is always somewhat different from the expectation, but at least you expected it. But there are other things. Things which never occurred to you prior to actually arriving in the middle of them. Things like explaining to your disbelieving daughter that she will indeed have to deal with this unpleasant feminine cycle every single month. Things like being 8 months pregnant and chasing your naked giggling toddler down the street. Things like having a child deliberately poop on the floor on purpose to make you mad. But, of all the things I didn’t know I signed up for when I had a baby, the one that haunts me most often is nail clipping.
In the hospital you look at the tiny fingers and toes and you marvel at them. Little do you know that you will soon be forced to take blades to those cute little nails and trim them off. If you do not, those cute little nails will be sharp little claws that will rake you bloody. Babies of course object to nail trimming, so they don’t hold still. More than once I’ve accidentally drawn blood while trimming the nail from a small digit. Then the child becomes mobile and can run away when the nail clippers come out. At various points I have cajoled, bribed, pleaded, and physically restrained various children to get their nails clipped. Link objected to nail clipping so strenuously that I would sneak in and clip them while he slept.
At 12, Kiki is finally in charge of her own nails, but this is a fairly recent development. For awhile I was in charge of 20 little digits for each of my kids. If I added in my own nails, that comes to an even 100 little nails for me to trim. Each and every one of those nails had to be trimmed at least once per month. That’s a lot of nail clipping. It is particularly annoying when Link would turn nail clipping into a 40 minute emotional ordeal. He has thankfully gotten over his terror of nail clippers. Also he has figured out that if he tears the nails off, I don’t have to clip them so often. I think Gleek is nearing the end of needing me to clip her nails for her. She loves nail polish and is trying to keep her nails nice so that they look pretty. This works for awhile, but then inevitably she plays in the sandbox or climbs a tree and makes them all ragged. Then we trim them off and start over again. Patches is fairly content to let me cut his nails as long as I only clip through 90% of the nail. He likes to pull them the rest of the way off by himself. He makes a little game out of it. I’m not sure what the game is, but it involves explosions and the nails going “Aaaaaah!” as they fall from his fingers.
So let this be a warning to all potential parents out there. The diapers are done within 3 years or so, but the nail trimming lasts much longer than that.
When I had my first, my midwife suggested biting off the fingernails for infants. A bit radical and I suppose it does lead to later nail biting in the child but it works and is a lot safer with those tiny fingers! Plus my kids were forever trying to put their fingers IN my mouth so it made it easier… just had to make sure their hands were clean (and my mouth was clean too since the fingers would inevitably go from my mouth to theirs).
My mom didn’t ever really have to worry about that with me. In fact, she had the opposite problem: I bit my nails, and so there was never anything to clip. (Interestingly enough, I blame the Disney movie The Parent Trap with Haley Mills for this state of events, because of the time where Sharon convinces Susan to start biting her nails so that their father won’t become suspicious. I was so intrigued at the possibility that someone would bite their nails that I just had to try it… and here I am today, a continuing nail-biter!) Either way, those durned digits just give parents problems left and right!
I bite my nails and have since I can remember, but I HATED getting my toenails cut because I’ve got crazy ticklish feet. My mom used to bribe me with a caramel per toenail that I didn’t fight her on. I don’t actually remember this, but she said it worked! Sugar buzz though!!
We give our baby a bottle, which keeps him holding relatively still while we clip them. I don’t know what we’re going to do when he gets older, though. I dread the day I hurt him so much I make my husband do all the clipping so I can blame him.
Well said (I love the nail counting math). How true that nobody warned me about this in all the “parenting is great; you should try it” literature. And it turns out to be such a big deal. I usually don’t notice how long and dirty my boys’ nails are until just before a piano lesson. Then I run for the clippers. I remember my piano teacher being a fingernail Nazi. If I came with long nails, she would wait while I went up to her bathroom and clipped them. This was one of the things I looked forward to when I finally stopped taking lessons: letting my nails grow long enough to shape and paint. Now I could care less about my nails and I wish I had my piano teacher back.
–Julie
“Things like having a child deliberately poop on the floor on purpose to make you mad.“
o-O
You’re kidding, right?
I hate nail cutting – my toddler won’t let us do it at all, he usually peels the ends off himself.
I know several mothers who take this approach.
No I’m not. All of those examples were drawn from my personal experience with parenting.
I am stunned.
I can’t imagine what I’d do in that case. I honestly can’t.
You’re far better person than I…
Funny, I didn’t think of nail cutting as a trial of parenthood… but now that you mention it… it really is! Should I start warning potential mothers? : )
“You’re a better man than I, Gunga Din!” (naked running toddlers and pooping on purpose are things I thankfully haven’t had to deal with.)
LightningBoy cuts his own and didn’t mind me cutting them before he could do it himself. Lucky me!
SoccerGirl FIGHTS me tooth and nail. And only comes to me if ONE NAIL is ragged enough to bug her.
Plus I have 2 cat’s worth of nails to clip too. They fight tooth and nail too (and VERY literally) if I don’t catch them at the right time … like when they are sleeping. Thank goodness it’s just the front paws.
Just keep looking forward to “everyone’s old enough to clip their own nails” DAY! : )