Pain is Beauty

There's nothing like the feeling of waking up in the morning to see the smiling face of your sweet baby.  Bright eyes, a head of peach fuzz, and that soft, clear, unmarred skin.

Or something like that.  

Lately each morning I've been greeted by a new scrape or gouge out of Adler's pristine skin.  I know it's not uncommon for babies to scratch themselves since baby fingernails are comprised mainly of glass shards and metal shavings, but at the sign of his first laceration I made sure to trim them short.  I gathered up the nail trimmings (complete with enough of my skin cells to supply an entire season's worth of Jerry Springer DNA tests) and tucked my baby into bed.  Problem solved.

The next morning there were two marks.

By the following evening, three.

This got me thinking.  Since I know Adler wasn't particularly agitated throughout the night, there must be another reason or his facial mutilations.  I mulled it over and decided that his behavior can only be explained by one of the following:

-Adler is a hypochondriac.  After overhearing a discussion I had the other day about the chicken pox vaccine, he was so concerned and distraught that his fears led him to pock himself in his sleep.  So glad he wasn't present for that chat about herpes.

 -When he awoke hungry in the early morning hours, Adler felt hungry and thought, as most babies do, that I would surely never feed him again EVER, and used his fingernails to create a buried treasure-style map to his mouth just in case I had forgotten how to feed him in my sleep-deprived stupor.  He really is a considerate baby.

-Because Joel and I have been successful in instilling in our children an appreciation for vintage television, Adler's scratching could have been an homage to the "Cream for a Day" episode of Saved By The Bell, in which the gang uses a homemade zit cream to clear up their blemishes, only to find that it stains their faces maroon.  (I'm so excited!  I'm so... scared!)

Or maybe I just missed a nail.  Stay tuned.