I Don't Like Pain

This isn't about me and pain, its about the boys. It is interesting to observe children and pain. If they fall down while having fun it typically isn't a big deal. Having to endure planned pain, look out.

The first born is 10 and a few months back it was discovered he had a big wart on the bottom of each foot. He went to the regular doctor a couple times for the scraping and liquid nitrogen treatment. Every night we put some serious living tissue killing ointment on it for like 3 months. So it is time for Dad to do some surgery. After screaming and yelling and sweating while not touching his feet for about a half hour, I finally do a little trimming. A week later after the medicine does its job it is time for more surgery. After 10 minutes of cajoling he does the surgery. Upon discovering it doesn't hurt much and the fun of picking he digs the whole wart off of each foot. A couple days later we clean up the aftermath and no more warts. That half hour of trying to convince was unbelievably emotional.

So last night the 6 year old complains that his toe hurts. Upon inspection after a couple minutes of convincing it looks like the beginnings of an in-grown toenail. So he starts into the screaming and kicking and crying (real tears) and sweating from the trauma of it all. So mom say she will hold him and he can squeeze her hands while dad does the surgery. He's not convinced and demands we call the doctor to make sure the hand sqeezing will help. The ultimate push over the edge is to explain what the doctor will do to his toe nail if it becomes in-grown. So amidst kicking and crying dad does the minor dig the corner out. After which he immediately stops crying upon realizing it wasn't so bad.

The mind is a serious enemy. We had this same thing occur with climbing into the tree house. This is the kid that taught himself to do flips on the trampoline at age 3. He's worried about being 12 feet off of the ground! Pain and fears are interesting things to observe children working through. It makes being a parent stressful and comical. DMP