From The Past: July 10, 2006

When Guido was a baby, trimming his nails was no problem. A little snip, snip, snip and we were finished.

As he got older, the sound of the snip when it clipped his toenail would startle him and he would jerk. Mind you, he still let us do the clipping, he was simply startled.

These days when his nails need clipping, he fights like mad. I am always afraid he will jerk at the wrong moment and something terrible will happen – there might even be blood – and I could not handle that. The knowledge that we inflicted any pain upon him would kill me. It would haunt me every night when I tried to sleep.

A few nights ago, it was, again, time to cut his nails. Kevin got the clippers and a nail file and scooped Guido up into his arms. Guido was placid until he realized what we wanted to do and then he started his squirming. It wasn’t only a little squirming either. This was more like a, I’m getting out of here and you’re not stopping me type of squirming.

During the squirming fit, my eye wandered off to a candy dish full of hard candies. This is when a brilliant idea came to me. A little voice inside my head said, let him lick a peppermint disk while Kevin clips his nails. So, that’s what I did. I told Kevin to stop everything while I unwrapped the candy.

I held Guido in one hand and the candy in another while Kevin snip, snip, snipped. It worked like a charm. He was so busy licking that candy he practically didn’t even notice the clipping.