Duck! Duck! Those were the words Emma tearfully exclaimed as she looked up at me in a panic. Although I didn’t know what she was talking about it was clear she was in trouble. From what, I could only imagine. You see, it was 8:20 PM. Emma was nestled by my side for the last 15 minutes as she always is when I put her to sleep. I was watching TV, and Emma was drinking the six ounces of soy Milk that she always does at bedtime. I remember peering down at her just a few minutes prior to note her progress. Her finger twirled soothingly in her hair and her bottle dipped and quickly recovered rhythmically as she slowly drifted in and out of consciousness. She was right on schedule and boarding the train to la-la land when her urgent call for “Duck!” rang out. Confused, I looked her up and down and asked her what was wrong. “Duck!” she replied, her eyes welling up with tears. Given that nothing could have entered the room to harm her, certainly not while her Daddy was there protecting her, I realized that this “Duck” that she spoke of was not a duck at all, but rather her attempt at the word, “stuck”. I quickly rationalized that she was stuck, but stuck on what! It just didn’t compute. I scanned her up and down again and the only thing that made sense was her hand which was still holding on to her hair. I attempted to pull it away from her head just to confirm that that was not what she was referring to and sure enough, it was stuck.
A closer inspection revealed that her index finger, whose gentle swirling motion has served her well these past 23 months, was tangled in a lock of hair. I apologized to Emma for not understanding her initially and then proceeded to liberate her index finger. But I couldn’t. Her hair was tightly wound and constricting it. I picked her up and carried her out of the dark bedroom so I could see what I was doing. It was there, in the light of the hallway that I realized that her finger was not only caught pretty bad, but her finger tip had turned purple. Not knowing how many minutes her digit had been held in a strangle-hold by her hair, I called Elena in as calm as a voice as I could. Elena responded quickly and ran upstairs. A little nervous, I stammered and studdered a description of the problem. After a couple failed attempts to remove Emma’s finger we ran to the office and Elena picked up a pair of scissors. Concerned with the discoloration in Emma’s finger tip, Elena was prepared to vanquish the lock of hair by any and all means necessary. As Elena held the scissor against the uncooperative lock and prepared to seal its fate, the hair reconsidered and released its grasp on Emma, sparing itself from a horrific end.
After a bit of massaging, the color of Emma’s finger returned to normal. Back in bed I rubbed Emma’s back to sooth her from the adrenaline rush she was on. As I did she would periodically lift her head, look me in the eye and blurt out words like, “Duck!”, “Air!”, “Daddy!”, “Mommy!”, “Cut!”. Which pretty much summarized the nights events.
