I hear that this happens to everyone who uses nail clippers eventually, but Tristan just got his first cut on his left thumb from the fingernail clipper. He was pissed off for maybe a minute but he thought that the cleaning up process was amusing so he kept grinning while we were in the bathroom. Several drops of baby blood on waving arms turn into little blood stains everywhere, and babies who suck on their bloody thumbs drool bloody drool. He seems to be just fine, though. He hasn’t even put the bandaid in his mouth yet.

Update from James: 20 minutes later, Tristan starts coughing. Tristan has managed to ninja his hand into his mouth, mouthed the bandaid off, and started trying to choke on it. All without me noticing his hand going anywhere NEAR his mouth, whilst I was actively trying to keep the hand out of his mouth.

Anyhow, when he started coughing, I flipped him face down (good instinct I suppose: Infant Choking Rescue Procedure)) and he quit doing so. It wasn’t ’til I flipped him back over that I noticed that the band aid was off (seriously: I was trying to keep the hand out of his mouth, I didn’t even consider he could have ninja’d the hand in). We did a little search trying to find it (we thought he might have swallowed it at that point), and sat him down on the changing table when we couldn’t find it, only to see him starting to basically start chewing; sure enough, he still had it in his mouth.

Extracted, and all better now (though the thumb is still bleeding), but scary nonetheless. He’s now wearing a sock over a vastly oversized bandaid, for safety. If the sock comes off, we’re resorting to duct tape.