So, picture it with me if you will...I am sitting there, cleaning out lil B's feet, when I notice what appears to be a cut around the end joint of his middle toe. It looks like a deep cut and the end of the toe is redder than the other toes. I take a closer look at the underside of the toe and my best guess is that a hair somehow wrapped itself around B's toe, perhaps weeks ago, and has been tightening around it ever since. I am at my parents' house at the time and I show my dad. He gets out his magnifying glass (who just happens to have a magnifying glass?! My dad, I guess.) and takes a peek. "Yup," he says, "it looks like a hair is wrapped around his toe joint and it's in there deep." My dad holds Ben, while I attempt to get at it with my finger nail. No luck and it only launches lil B into a scream fest. Poor little guy.
So, what do I do? I call the pediatrician and I feel slightly silly doing it. But, I quickly feel normalized when the nurse says, "oh, a hair tourniquet." And I say, "Oh you have a name for this? It must mean he's not the first kid to have this happen." She assures me that he isn't, but seems very concerned about the possibility that the hair is cutting off B's circulation and due to the cut, possibly causing an infection in his toe. She wants me to bring him in that afternoon. I ask if I can bring him the next morning, but she is pretty adamant that he needs to come in today. Of course, the only afternoon of the entire week that I had something scheduled was this afternoon. I have two clients scheduled, one at 3:30 and one at 5:45. My dad had been planning to watch B at his house (40 min from the doc's office) while I would go to see my clients. And I am looking forward to reading my book in peace, which I never get to do, at my office during the hour between my two clients. No, such luck. The doc can see us at 4:40, so I decide to "mom up" and take Ben and my dad to my office with me. My dad, being the champ that he is, watches Ben in my office waiting room while I see my first client. Then we hop in the car, and zip over to the pediatrician's office. Fortunately, the doc has the where-with-all to have me stand up by B's head, while my dad holds his little foot. The doc puts B under an operating lamp and takes out the tiniest little instrument I've ever seen. Poor lil Ben is yelling at the top of his lungs and I'm doing my best not to burst into tears, seeing him in so much pain.
Thankfully, I do not see what the doc is doing to remove the miniscule hair that was causing so much pain. My dad said she had to cut his skin even more to remove it. Once she's done removing the hair, she shows it to me and says, "Just be glad it wasn't wrapped around another little appendage in his mid-section, we get those too." I gasp and think to myself, 'you better believe I'll be on the lookout for that!' I can't even imagine the pain it would inflict to remove a hair from THERE. So, my dad, Ben and I hop back in the car and zip back to my office where dad watches Ben again, while I see my second client. Needless to say we're all quite exhausted when we got home that night.
And there you have the story of the Hair Tourniquet!
For those of you that have known me for any length of time, you know that my life's motto or mantra or whatever you want to call it, the phrase which I desire to live out in my daily life, is Love Deeply, Hold Loosely. At different times in my life, one part of the phrase has been more challenging to live out than the other. But generally speaking, I struggle more often with the 'Hold loosely' part. And now that I have a child, I find it more challenging than ever to hold loosely. But I got to witness firsthand what happens when something wraps itself around something too tightly. It cuts off the circulation, it stops the life from flowing, and it causes pain.
Right now, it's incredibly easy to love my son deeply, of course he can't yet talk back to me in a sassy tone! But it just feels natural to love him. Ah, but the holding loosely part, not so easy. I just love him so much, I want the best for him, and I want to protect him. Yet, I know that I don't want to be a helicopter mom who controls my son's every move, something I will evermore refer to as a 'mom tourniquet!' I don't want to hold my grasp on him so tightly that he doesn't feel the freedom to be himself, to live fully. I want him to be who he was created to be and I desire to let him try new things, succeed, fail, make mistakes, and be there for him when he falls down. I want to help him navigate life, rather than plan his life. I realize that loving him deeply will often mean letting him go...whether that's 2 feet away or 2000 miles away to college. I've got a lot of growing to do though, I already tear up every time I see a commercial where a mom is sending her baby off to kindergarten for the first time. I'm so not ready to go there. So, for now, I will practice holding loosely, empowering my son to live fully into who he was created to be, whatever that is and wherever that takes him...and I'll just hope that it won't be back to the doc's office anytime soon! Easier said than done, right?!
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