The Tweezer Guy

The Tweezer Guy

My youngest son, EB, had to get stiches last week on his knee. To relive that event, feel free to read Screaming, Stitches and a Slushy again! Because his injury was on his knee, the doctors were unable to put disolvable stitches in. This meant, another visit to the children’s urgent care, another play-date with the punked-out Cabbage Patch doll and another possible screaming fest followed by a slushy to remove the stitches. This was not sounding like a quick, “fun” time for mommy.

Thankfully, my mom, Grandma, is a retired nurse. It is so nice to have nurses in the family (my mom-in-law is one also). She said I didn’t have to take EB back to the children’s urgent care, she would stop by after her ladies luncheon and “snip the suckers out.” So, Grandma came over and we gathered up all our supplies. We had our hair cutting scissors (cleaned and dysinfected), my eyebrow tweezers (cleaned and dysinfected), alcohol wipes and one very, nervous cleaned knee.

We set EB down infront of the back door. “Best light for surgery,” said Grandma with her fancy, dangling necklace. EB kept asking if it would hurt. Grandma said, “Not nearly as bad as when you got them.” I was silently praying this was true…I had my doubts. I should never doubt Lady-Luncheon-Retired-Nurse-Wearing-Great-Jewelry Grandma. She snipped, snipped, snipped the stitches then pulled the first one out with tweezers. Not a scream, gasp or peep from EB except, “Can I try? I want to do it!”

Now, I would NEVER let my kid pull his own stitches out, but Grandma, who feeds EB cookie lunches, said, “Sure.” She handed the tweezers to EB and he slowy tried to grab the knot. This is actually a good fine motor skills exercise. He kept trying and missing. His little hand shaking with his tongue sticking out in concentration. I was tempted to yell out, “takes a steady hand” from the Operation game commercials. Then EB yelled, “I got it!”, holding up not one, but two stitches! He pulled them both out together. He was exstatic and I think a little in love with the tweezers. He now wants to be the “tweezer guy” and “take everyone’s stitches out.”

Thanks, Grandma, for making a scary situation, not scary at all, but actually FUN! I’m donating my tweezers to “Tweezer Guy” so he can practice before we apply to med schools.