Nail trimming

Today I was turning some of my hair into grey. Seriously. I was trimming Maxim’s finger nails. It was done twice by his grandmother, so I was lucky. Today though I had to do it myself. For those of you not familiar with the procedure here is a short tour.

Firstly, imagine the sizes and fragility. A piece of paper is much thicker than Maxim’s nails. They are also very soft and small. A pair of tweezers needed to trim these nails looks like Godzilla’s jaws.

Secondly, I want to remind you that Maxim is not yet in control of his hands. He can barely guess that his hands are a part of him. He moves a lot without knowing so. He also has a bunch of reflexes which help him through the first days of his life. One of the reflexes is closing his hands into a fist when alert. The only way to have them stay still is wait until he falls asleep or really calms down during the second part of his feeding.

I was lucky with the first nine fingers. It took me about 5 minutes only to take care of them. The thumb of his left hand though was always trying to hide. Every time I was trying to open his hand he would go back to the alert mode and close the fist even stronger, putting his thumb under all other fingers. After about another 5 minutes of manouvering with Godzilla’s jaws around his tiny hand I finally managed to trim the thumb nail too.

During the procedure I was so concentrated and felt so much pressure that it made virtually all my muscles strain. But I am proud to report that no baby was hurt in the production of this post. Fortunately, this procedure needs to be done only about once a week.