You're Stuck With Me, Kid!

The next hour or so was a whirlwind, with a flurry of paperwork, a firehose of verbal instructions, a list of who to call in any possible situation, and so much more. Luckily, the girls had something to do. I laid down a plastic tablecloth on the floor in the front hall, and while the grownups talked about grownup things, the girls painted their very own unique art to hang over their beds. I told you the blank canvases were a stroke of genius! I was incredibly grateful for the distraction the painting provided, because Kristen the caseworker had a lot to say about many of the adults in the girls' lives. Not much was positive, and she didn't hold back.

After about an hour, Kristen the caseworker from Children and Youth left. She will affectionately be referred to as CYS Kristen from this point forward. Our original case manager from Families United Network (FUN) had the same name, and our family absolutely loves her. CYS Kristen? Not so much. So it became official - "CYS Kristen" and "FUN Kristin." If you stick with me, you'll soon come to understand the nicknames.

Anyway, moving on. Once we were alone, and the art was drying, we all sat silently at the dining room table. I looked at Holly, and she was looking back at me with a mixture of terror, amusement, and apprehension. I looked towards the girls, and their eyes were darting between me, Holly, each other, and the room around us. I don't think we even have an analog clock in the house, but it was so quiet I swear I could hear the ticking of one. Suddenly, a voice broke the silence. "So. What do you all want to do?" It was so loud it startled me. Even more startling was realizing that voice came from me. Why was I so nervous? I'm an educator and I've taught kids their ages for years.

My thoughts were interrupted by a cute little voice. "Can we go to Dollar Tree?" How could we say no? So we piled into the car as a family of four for the very first time, and headed to Dollar Tree. The girls walked around the store picking out their favorite candy, favorite hair clips, and well, favorite EVERYTHING. This included their favorite fake nails. They promised us that Grandma put them on for them all the time, These weren't the "kid-friendly sticky nails," they were the "heavy-duty, paint and trim them yourself, and use GLUE to put them on nails." But I wanted them to feel comfortable and have the creature comforts of home, so in the cart they went!

$80 and what felt like hours later, we emerged from Dollar Tree with two very happy little girls, and two very exhausted middle-aged women. Before heading home, we made a few more stops to grab some necessities, including nail glue, and made our way home. We tumbled through the door, both Holly and I making a beeline for the couch to snuggle up with blankets, watch a movie, and get the kids to bed. But, the girls had other ideas.

With supersonic speed and the unexplainable high energy only children have, their Dollar Tree loot had been dumped all over the table, and they were sorting it into categories: candy, toys, makeup, and NAILS. For just a moment, the noise and excitement blurred in the background as Holly and I made eye contact across the table. In that moment, an entire conversation happened without a word:

Holly: "Babe. I'm so tired. Are we really going to do this right now?"

Me: "But honey! Look at their faces. I'm just so excited to see them happy!"

Holly: "Fine. But I'll be in the living room relaxing."

Me: "Yay!"

An with that, as Holly hightailed it out of the room, I asked the girls what they wanted to do first. "K" immediately called out in her adorable six-year-old voice, "NAILS!" So, nails it was. How hard could it be? I mean, I taught kindergarten for years, so I can glue better than most, right? Nope. No way. This nail glue is like nothing I've ever experienced. We started at the thumb, because that was the easiest to fit. Remember, these aren't kid nails, but these are definitely kid fingers. So I put a drop of glue on the backside of the nail, applied it to K's thumb, and pressed down with mine.

As I pulled away, I was terrified we'd be stuck together, but we weren't. See? That wasn't so bad. We decided we would apply all the nails first and then trim them down to a suitable length. As I moved through the fingers on her right hand, I became more and more confident in my abilities. Just a dab of glue, flip the nail over, place it on the nail bed, and press down to secure it with my thumb. I couldn't believe I had been so worried. I was starting to think I was made for this parenting thing after all. Easy squeezy lemon peezy. First hand done, I pressed down on K's pinky to secure the nail in place.

As I pulled my hand away to reach for the next nail, I realized there was a problem. My hand didn't move away from K's hand. Instead, I felt a slight pinching feeling and realized my thumb was still on top of her pinky. Our eyes met over our fingers, and we both giggled. I knew at some point in the day K had mentioned she sometimes gets emotional ("ee-moh-thun-ul"). But I didn't find any of that in her little giggle. I knew we could get out of this easily, so I said, "Well honey. You're stuck with me forever now!" Her eyes grew big, and in under a second they filled up and ran over with tears. What came next was a sound I've never heard before. Not quite a scream or a cry, but more of a howl. The sweet adoration I had seen on her face just moments before became a mixture of hatred, anger, and fear. This was not how I wanted the evening to go!

The Rescue

Luckily, the living room isn't far from where we were applying the now infamous nails. With my one free hand, I was already Googling on my phone's keyboard:

"How to unstick nail glue..."

"Hands stuck together with nail glue..."

"How long does the stickiness of nail glue last..."

As Holly entered the room, I yelled for her to grab a bowl and bring it to the table. With my one free hand, I tried to pry open the nail polish remover, but to no avail. I slid it across the table and continued to bark orders. "Open the bottle and pour some in the bowl." It was then that I noticed the ebb and flow of K's emotions was directly linked to my level of demonstrated panic. And yes, the longer we sat there the more panicked I became. I knew I had to reign it in. It was the first time I could finally understand what it meant to put your kids first. I wanted to panic and I wanted to cry, but I knew I needed to keep that at bay in order to support this scared six year old girl who was glued to a virtual stranger who told her they would be stuck together forever!

Over the next hour, I texted anyone I knew that may have ever worn fake nails, and I tried a ton of remedies from the internet. Ice water, nail polish remover, Vaseline, warm water, dish soap in water, and I'm sure there were more. K whimpered on and off, and howled that indescribable sound every time I tried to pull us apart. Although I received a few "I told you so" looks from Holly, she exercised incredible patience, especially since she hadn't wanted to be part of this activity in the first place. She calmly brought us each new ingredient or substance that was going to be the one thing that I was sure would work But, after over an hour, she'd had enough. There were multiple bowls of water, an empty bottle of nail polish remover, paper towels, and a jar of Vaseline littering the table. I was calming sweet little K with our hands propped on the table between us. With one swift motion, Holly swooped her hand into the Vaseline jar, scooping out a huge glob. With the glob hand, she grabbed our two fingers so the Vaseline oozed out. And just like that, we were free. No pain, no ripped skin, and non more tears. K fell silent, with a stunned look on her face. In a matter of seconds, her face shifted from anger and fear, to confusion, to amusement, to pure joy!

I stood up, cleaned up the mess from the table, and we all filed silently into the living room, each grabbed a blanket, and put on a movie. One thing was certain that night. My life would never be boring again!