"One splinter in your child's foot is unfortunate, PM. Two? That looks like carelessness..." (substitute 'neglect' 'fecklessness' 'unfit mothering' for 'carelessness' as you wish).
Never mind how it happened; today I had to pull not one but two splinters from Boy #1's foot. And I'm amazed that the social services haven't yet come knocking on our door, given the amount of screaming, pleading, weeping and cajoling going on. Amazingly, none of it was even from me...
In the end though, I - and the world's best tweezers - prevailed*, and the splinters were vanquished. The patient has now retired to bed, pale and wan but on the mend, with strict instructions he's not to set foot on any wooden floor for around the next 20 years without shoes on his tender little feet so-help-me-god...
In other news, I've posted here about shoe shopping in Moscow (you may recognise the post as a rehash of something I wrote on this blog a few months back. So shoot me. It's week 6 of the summer holidays; wanna make something of it?), and Boy #2 gave me a lift with his use of the world 'Snortle' for 'snorkel'.
Come on. 'Snortle'. I don't care how stressed you are about the holidays; that's funny, right?
*Not, I have to admit, until I had removed my contact lenses to give my aging eyes better close-work vision; how's that for a wake-up call that you're not 25 any more?
