Catching

You know those annoying habits your kids pick up that you are constantly trying to get them to stop. You know--nose picking, biting nails, chewing on their shirt and throwing everything in the air and catching it.  As a mom, I can see the long term consequences that completely escape their notice. You pick your nose, it can bleed and the skin gets red and irritated. You chew your nails, the nails get weak and tear.  You chew your shirt, the shirt collar will stretch and look funny.  I thought I knew the consequence for throwing and catching--you'll break something.  I now have a new one. You'll get a staple in your finger.




It never even dawned on me to tell my son to not throw a stapler when I asked him to get it for me.  It didn't dawn on me that my sports-inclined, agile son who likes to test his skills at all time would even toss it, watch it spin in the air and then catch it.  I was busy. It was time to leave for soccer practice, left-overs needed to be in the fridge because right after soccer was pack meeting.

I heard a brief shout.  No crying or screaming.  Just the loud, "MOOOOOMMMMM." 

Exasperated, my response was short as I shoved left-over pizza in the fridge.  "What."

He did a high pitched whine again, coming into the kitchen.  "MOOOOOMMMM. Look."

And there you have it, the long term consequence for throwing an ordinary household object in the air.  He said it didn't hurt. It just felt like a pinch and he only noticed it when he came to the kitchen.  It had gone into the pointer finger on his right hand.  I'd been reamed out by a nurse when he was 2 for pulling a nail out of his palm.  You're supposed to let a medical professional assess the foreign object to see if it hit bone or other important areas.  Still, I probably would have just pulled it out and put on a bandaid except that I could see the staple on the other side of his finger just under the nail.  That freaked me out. If it wasn't going to come easily, the medical professional could do it.

I called my blessedly close mother-in-law and left the other two children with her. I called the doctor's office while on the road and my husband met us there.  A lot of paper jokes, a quick yank, some tears and a prescription for augmentin and we were out of the doctor's office and ready to move on.  Even though his finger hurt for a couple of days, he did get a kick out of showing people the picture. And he got to add the doctor's collection of things he's pulled out of kids.  My son was most surprised by the rather large crayon that came out of a nose and 3 earring backs from girls putting them on too tight and it slips under the skin on the back.  That one surprised me too.

So, the next time you are trying to stop your boys from throwing and catching things in the house, you can always tell them that they could end up with a staple in a finger.