Ferocious

Certain things that my kids do drive me nuts.  For instance, my oldest freaks out when I have to cut her toenails.  For the record, I've never once, not even when she was a baby, cut her or made her bleed.  (Now, the other kids... )

Anyway, she'll reluctantly give me her foot and then freak out and jerk it away right before I clip the toenail.  It's worse when she's tired.  (Which is when I always get the notion to cut her nails...  Apparently, I like a challenge). 

The other day, I called her into the bathroom, having noticed that her toes were beginning to resemble talons instead of sweet little girl feet.  She slunk into the room and gave me a look as she ever-so-slowly brought her foot up to my lap.  I held onto it, grabbed the clippers, and made a motion to go toward clipping her big toenail.  Just as the clipper touched her toe, she jerked her whole foot back and started whimpering.  "I don't WANNNNA have you cut my toooooenaaaaails!"  I gave her a look and told her to give me her foot.

And repeat. 

After 3 or 4 more times, I was completely exasperated.  I dropped my voice to a fierce whisper, looked at her and said, "LEXI. GIVE. ME. YOUR. FOOT. RIGHT. NOW!  If you keep jerking it away, I'm going to end up cutting your toe off!  NOW GIVE ME YOUR FOOT!"

We stared at each other for a split second before she dropped into a crouch, balled her hands into fists and hissed, "NEVER!" at me while punching a hand into the air.  She totally looked like William Wallace, "You can take my toenails, but you'll never TAKE MY FREEDOM!"

The whole effect was so ridiculous that I burst into peels of laughter. 

So did she. 

The nail cutting went slightly more smoothly after that.  Slightly.  At the very least, she found a way to diffuse my temper and get herself out of trouble.  Because I laugh every single time.