A Single Strand

One last thing. Today we had a little baby scare. We were at church and Alex noticed that one of A's socks was missing. Oh well, no big deal. But about an hour later in Sunday School, I was looking at her little foot, keeping it warm with my hand and started picking out the sock lint stuck between her toes. Upon closely inspecting her foot in this way, I realized that what initially looked like just chubby baby rolls on her toes was really pieces of hair/string that was wrapped tightly around three of her toes. It wasn't cutting off circulation just yet, but I could see how it could very easily in very little time.

I quickly engaged the help of my sister in law out in the hall to remove the tightly bound lint/hair from her tiny toes. This is harder than it sounds. We had to immobilize her foot all the while she was kicking and screaming, in order to pick it out with our fingernails. it was too tight to slip a pen tip under and I was too scared to get too close to her foot with the pocketknife someone generously provided, with her kicking so. I'm sure that pulling on the hairs in order to break them must have really hurt her little toes, and the middle toe that took the longest to extricate still bears an angry red mark where the hair was twisted.



Of course a scene like this draws attention. Apparently this is not a completely rare occurrence. One lady told us how her nurse/sister told her stories of babies who had this very thing happen and had to have their toes amputated because it wasn't caught in time. I can see how easily that could happen. Especially in winter when her feet are covered with socks or booties all the time. And the poor little dears can't just tell you what's wrong. I never would have thought before to check the toes of a colicky baby, but I can tell you, I'll be checking Baby A's toes a lot more often now.

It's scary to think of how fragile the human body really is; especially these adorable little babies' bodies. That a single strand of hair could cause them to lose a couple toes. I'm just sooo grateful for a lost sock that allowed us to find the problem in time.