Baby Hands: An Adorable Menace
We're in a grabby, scratchy phase over here. No necklace is safe.
I’m being tormented by a very cute bully.
These first months of motherhood can best be summarized as a wild oscillation between a feeling of “Wtf, I had no idea” and a feeling of “Ah, yes, now I understand.”
Today is an Ah, yes day. Ah, yes. Now I understand why parents must develop lightning-fast reflexes. Now I understand why moms cut their hair short.
One of the first things I noticed about my daughter after she was born was her hands– her hands seemed disproportionately large compared to her body, like Mickey Mouse hands. I imagined what she’d do with large hands, if they remained that way as she grew up. Maybe she’d be one of those pianists with a biological advantage, like Rachmaninov, whose hands were so freakishly large that he wrote music that some people cannot physically play. Maybe she’d be able to palm a basketball or climb up rock faces.
It will be years before we’ll know if she even has the desire to play beach volleyball or a bass violin, but for now, I’ve discovered at least one thing she can do with her hands: inflict pain.
My seven-month-old baby’s grip strength is incredible. She’s left bruises down the back of my arm. She pinches me on the side of my torso while I feed her. She grabs my hair and yanks with the force of a bully in a playground showdown, she is able to seize my cheeks, nose, lips, and ears with impressive speed and hold on with a strength that makes me wonder if, perhaps, her future is in professional wrestling. She tears at my clothing to signify that she’s hungry. If it’s been more than a few minutes since I’ve been in view and I pick her up, she grabs at my neck skin and gumlessly bites me on the face.
Are all babies tiny mean little hulks? Juniper has a two-year-old cousin she met back in February who alternately cuddled her and tried to see if she could use her thumbs to forcefully close her eyes like one of her baby dolls. She met a slightly older baby the other week and the first thing the two of them did was try to grab each other’s faces like they were doing krav maga.
There used to be an anti-abortion billboard near where I went to college emblazoned with a photo of an ultrasound and the words “I HAVE FINGERNAILS!”, as though that information would make a pregnant woman who didn’t want to remain pregnant more likely to let something unwelcome grow inside her, and then give birth to it. What I didn’t know then was that after babies emerge and start to figure out the basics of manual dexterity, those fingernails are tiny razorblades that need to be cut practically every day and are capable of easily shredding enough layers of human epidermis to draw blood. Now, I read that billboard as more of an in utero threat. "Don't mess with me; I"ve got fingernails!"
For the last 15-plus years, the number one reason one of my extremities would bleed was that my cat did it and the number two reason was that I accidentally cut myself while preparing food. Both have now been usurped by my own child, who cannot speak but is maiming at what seems like an advanced level.
The other day I gave instructions to the men we’d hired to wash our exterior windows while a single drop of blood slowly rolled down my neck, a fact I discovered after I returned indoors and looked at myself in the mirror. I considered going back outside and explaining that I was bleeding because I have a baby, but decided instead to live in the hope that they either hadn’t noticed, or that they did notice and needed something to discuss on the drive back to window washing HQ.
The baby's fingernails grow more quickly than I can cut them. Every morning they are long again; it's borderline Sisyphean. And every time I cut them, I am terrified; one thing that sucks more than being maimed by a baby is accidentally knicking a baby’s skin with nail clippers and causing them to cry and bleed and look at you like they’re mentally calculating their future therapy bills. Another mom friend tipped me off that the way to deal with baby fingernails is to bite them off, but that’s not a cake walk either. Babies in their hand discovery phase notoriously do not let their hands rest. It’s hard to bite a tiny fingernail off when the owner of said fingernail is hooking her claws into the inside of your lip like a fisherman.
Her hands grab for everything now, things she’s never been allowed to have, things like stemware and candles and electrical cords. We’re way behind on childproofing and heaven help us if she suddenly learns to crawl.
She will seize napkins and in a flash they will be in her mouth. She will respond to the cat’s friendly overtures by going for a fistful of her fur. She will find strands of my hair that are not tightly pulled back and somehow manage to wrap long strands around each of her fingers so that I need to physically untangle her. If something is on a table and she can reach it, soon it will be on the floor. I finally understand the “Mom haircut.” I am coming to terms with the fact that I won’t be wearing necklaces or earrings for the foreseeable.
Nevertheless, I will cherish these days of grabbing and scratching. Soon, she will have teeth.
Image via Shutterstock