The Splinter

Most of our time of late has been taken up with boxes....assembling boxes, taping boxes, filling boxes, labeling boxes, stacking boxes (hiding in boxes during hide-n-seek :P), and so I haven't gotten around to posting much. We did have a fabulous time in WA last month while we played with friends (and waaay extended our intended visit while we searched for and found a house to rent in the area--thank you, our very tolerant friends, for your seriously gracious hospitality!), and, as there often is with boys, there was a teeny bit of injury involved with our stay as well. Crawdad, being Crawdad, was sliding barefoot along a wooden banister when a piece of it decided to lodge in his foot. In his defense, it was a polished banister. But polished or not, part of it splintered off and embedded itself in his foot, which resulted in Cub interrupting the puzzle Liberty and I were working to request my immediate assistance.

I was expecting a little splinter. What I found was this....the part you can see sticking out is about 1/4 of the sliver of wood stuck in his foot. Tried just pulling it out, but to no avail. That sucker was deep. 

A little ice to numb things up (and because it had started to swell just a bit)

Me being a complete goof because Liberty insisted on taking my picture. :P You can see the various first aid supplies involved in the extraction...

A decent amount of screaming (poor Crawdad--it did hurt, I'm sure), a slight incision with an exacto knife, a quick prayer, a good solid tug with the pliers, and viola....one long, bloody splinter on the outside instead of the inside of my sweet boy.

In case you didn't get a good enough look in the previous picture.... :P

He survived! :)