I remember when I was pregnant that my fears weren’t about the pain of childbirth, breastfeeding or the unknown. Instead, I worried about the small stuff.

Several weeks after bringing Ethan home my mother-in-law visited and stayed with us to help. The kind of help that sits to the side and tells you everything you’re doing wrong and how she would do it. There was one thing she helped with and that was teaching me how to trim a newborns finger nails. I was terrified of using clippers and being a new mom I wasn’t aware they made these little curved scissors that work wonders on little bitty fingers.

Words cannot describe my fear of possibly hurting this small being. After the first year of Ethan’s life I became more comfortable and he became more active. As those of you with little ones know it’s like hitting a moving target.

Fast forward to present day. Ethan is almost 6 years old. At what age do they get over being afraid of getting their nails trimmed? Seriously? The kid is Mr. Drama when the clippers come out. You’d think I’d previously ripped his entire nail out by the way he acts. Or in his case performs.

I’m deeply afraid some day this will all turn into some freaky foot fetish. I have dreams about it at night - picturing him sitting with a therapist saying that his problems all began when his mother tortured him with the nail clippers. That is what he screams out when I trim his nails, that I’m “killing him.”

My belief is that all this started when he was younger and my mother would tease him saying she was going to bite his toes. He’d completely lose it, sometimes bringing tears and more drama. She will deny the relation between the two, but I see some coincidence there.

Whatever his own fears are, I’m fairly certain he inherited this anxiety from me. He doesn’t seem to sweat the big stuff, but the small things are constantly on his mind.

For instance, today he asked me if the trash man came on Christmas Day. I explained that they did not pick up trash on holidays. When I asked why he wondered that, he said that it wasn’t fair that the people who had pick-up scheduled for that day missed their turn.

The small stuff matters to him. That’s why the finger nails mattered to me.

Will wonders never cease? I hate that saying. My blue color won out and there are now two lovely coats on the kitchen wall. Thanks for all the reassurance that I was right, but I knew I was.

Ethan spent his afternoon in the new clubhouse. There is this very tall monstrosity in our backyard for kids. You can see it for miles. Ok, maybe not miles…but from way down the road. It’s got lights and electricity. What more could a kid want? I’m thinking it will come in handy after we move in and Nate disagrees with me again. Perfect place for him.

How much do you think it would cost to add heat out there?

We signed Ethan up for what we thought was t-ball. He is playing on a 5-6 year old team and it turned out to be a pitching machine league. So far he has done pretty well, but it makes me nervous to see a ball flying at him that fast. The parents on his team are going to provide quite a bit of entertainment for us. We’re only 2 practices into the season and I’ve already labeled a few of them.

See this guy? I call him “Hang Man.” See how he hangs on the fence constantly coaching his supposedly 6 year old son (who looks like he’s 8 o 9!) The man doesn’t stop talking and giving pointers and asking his son what he’s going to do if he gets the ball and… Seriously, I could care less how old his son is (who can’t throw, hit or catch), but either sign up to be a coach or sit down and shut up already!

And this guy looks like someone. Can you guess who?

Steven Seagal maybe?

Yesterday, we found out what exactly happened in the Blue Sticky Tack Fiasco of 2008 with Ethan. His teacher could hardly form the sentences between the laughs to explain. Ethan took a poster down off the wall and then decided to see if the sticky tack would hold his head to the wall. That is why it was all in his bangs around the forehead.

His rationalization was that if it held up a poster, it might hold his head to the wall. When we asked him about it last night, he acknowledged his experiment and admitted failure.

“Don’t try it though, because my head weighed too much to stick and your head is bigger than mine!”

Have you ever had one of those days where you come home so exhausted that you’re just done. Well I’m well done. Someone take me off the grill. I spent all day listening to presentations given to teenagers on making good decisions.

At home I was greeted by a little boy who had this in the front of his hair.

For the record Ethan, this was not a good decision.

Somehow during nap time the blue sticky tack fell off the wall and into his hair! Can you believe that? We tried to comb it out, wash it out, grease it up with butter, everything…then two rather tired, frazzled parents just cut it out. (Ok, I did the cutting while Nate was downstairs doing laundry.) After a little scissor action it was apparent that we would have to shave his head.

Thus began the five year old drama - “I don’t want to be bald! Don’t cut all my hair off it won’t grow back! You’re trying to kill me!”

After the buzz he reached up and felt his head and said, “I feel like dad.” Yes son, he did contribute some sperm to your genetic make-up. You may have hair like him, but you got the drama from your mama!