Making my kid cry...

I had an interesting parenting moment this evening. Moose got a nice sliver in his toe the other day. I'm not entirely sure where he got it from. I have one possibility. Anyway, it went deep and was a good size. I gave it a check squeeze to see if it would slide out easily, and decided to leave it be for a while to see if it naturally pushed out a bit. I didn't want to torture my kid just because I have OCD about these kinds of things.

I went to check it tonight before bed and it hadn't moved at all. I was slightly concerned. I didn't want the skin to regrow over it, you know? So I tried working on it a bit. I could feel the very end and thought I could work it out.

Long story short, I got it out. However, I had to squeeze his little toe really hard. Twice. The second time, I knew he was going to scream and cry. I also knew that if I did it, the sliver would come out and his toe could heal. I chose to squeeze.

It was not an easy decision to make my brave little Moose cry like that. He has a pretty high pain tolerance, we've noticed in his 3 1/2 years. Considering what I did to him, he was extremely brave. He still screamed pretty good, had a small cry, calmed down pretty easily. (Although the entire time he was bribed with some sweetheart candies from V-day, a flashlight to play with, and a movie got put in the TV near the end.)

In the end, I had to stop and take a quick second for a parenting reflection. I did not enjoy making Moose cry. Not one bit. I've got that mothering gene that hates when your kids cry in pain. (I don't care if they cry in anger, boredom, or those sorts of things. But pain, I don't handle well.) But I knew that if I didn't get that sliver out, it could be worse for him in the end. So I made him cry, squeezed that big thing out, and got it over with.

Lesson for today: Sometimes I'm going to have to make my kids cry. But as long as I'm making my decisions with a clear head, not using my emotions to guide me, I think I'll be able to handle it. I hope so, anyway.