Splinter Removal

I performed one of the more dreaded duties of fatherhood today: splinter removal.

Lora came home from a friend's house yesterday and said she had a splinter but she wouldn't let me look at it. This evening I caught her favoring her middle finger, and I coaxed her out of a peek.

It was red and swollen, and it had to come out.

It was horizontal across the second joint palmside, parallel with the end of her finger. The wound had closed over; there was no accessible exit point. This was going to be bad. An excavation. Code-3 emergency. Certified personnel only.

To say I was merely worried is to understate the lack confidence I had in my excavation skills. I had a flashback to when Evan was just a little older than Lora is now. He had a splinter deep in the sole of his foot that he wouldn't let go of. Or, more accurately, wouldn't let anyone touch. It, too, had to come out, though, so into the floor we went, Joan holding him topside and me latched onto his ankle. Oh, the screaming. Shrill, hysterical, pterodactyl-level screaming. Whether I was actually touching him or the splinter or not. Once, a stray sigh of desperation wafted from my nostrils and brushed across the wound, starting the scream cycle over again from the first octave. I thought I would never get the splinter out of his foot and get his voice back down into a comfortable decibel level again. I was dreading a repeat situation with my little princess.

But it didn't happen. Oh, she cried. Ok, she wailed, a little. But she was not hysterical. I comforted her with my tone of voice and usual calmness, as I had done with Evan, but she responded much differently than he had. I know it hurt her, but she was a trooper. I have seldom been as relieved as I was when I made a desperation grab at the splinter and came out with it. A little soap here, a bandaid there, and something to drink, and my little smiley girl is back to normal.

God help me when her hurts get bigger.