Thankfully infants have short memories

I did it again...while clipping Leah's nails this morning...I clipped her finger. This was the 4th time I've cut her nails and the 2nd time I've drawn blood. After 2 pain-free sessions of squirming nervous nail-clipping I thought I had gotten the hang of this...but no...apparently not. I'd like to blame it on Leah...but that doesn't seem like the right doting mother attitude. She did move her hand just as I went to clip the nail of her right middle finger. But I'm the one who should be more careful. She doesn't know better than to move her hand...she's 11 and a half weeks old.

Anyway, she let out this piercing yelp, followed by the huge-open-mouth-silent-I'm-drawing-breath-so-that-I-can-let-out-an-enormous-loud-cry-and-make-you-feel-like-the-worst-mother-in-the-world-cry. She continued to cry a little for a minute or so while I put pressure on her finger to stop the bleeding. And then I put her to the breast. Of course a couple minutes of nursing and she had forgotten all about the fact that I sliced into the pad of her right middle finger with sharp nail clippers. I put a little baby aquaphor on it to help it heal...but it's already closed up...and I'm sure she'll have no permanent damage.

Unfortunately I feel this may be a common occurrence. I've read that you should clip a baby's nails while she sleeps. But Leah only sleeps swaddled...so that's not going to be possible. I try to clip her nails after a morning feeding while listening to music so that she is sitting fairly calmly, rather than wanting to be moving and playing or crying. But there's no stopping those squirmy movements. I could really use a 3rd hand, but it would have to be mine. I don't think 2 of us clipping nails would be any better...too hard to coordinate movements I think.

On a much more exciting note, Leah's 2 best friends are on the way. Erica Ruth Weinstein was born last Tuesday to my friends Jamie & Brian. And baby-girl-name-to-be-announced Reid should be arriving today or tommorrow, as my friend Eilisa called me a few hours ago to say that she's in labor with contractions 6-8 minutes apart and will likely be heading to the hospital relatively soon. She was due on Saturday, so I'm very excited for her that her labor started on its own and she won't have to wait it out any longer.

It'll be awhile before Leah gets to meet her new BFFs but we're sure that they'll all get along great - and soon enough the 3 month age difference will be unnoticable.

Here's Erica and her happy parents: