Tried to amputate her finger!

My two little ones LOVE to close doors.
Not softly, but as loudly & as hard as possible.
The bathroom door, the door to their room, cupboard. . .if it's open, and preferably if it will make a loud noise, they NEED to shut it—not paying attention to who or what is near them and may be in their way.

Needless to say, every time I hear a door slam, I cringe a little in expectation of an ensuing wail and little fingers being severed. In many ways, I feel it is only a matter of time: Crushed fingers, or worse, are inevitable.

However, I didn't see this coming.

This morning, Little Sister's left, first finger was in jeopardy.

The culprit? (Hint: it wasn't a door)

Her blanket.



It could have been any blanket, but this one happened to be a very cute blanket from DwellStudio for Target. But do you see that little, dingy, much-touched tag hanging down up there? Little Sis, like many small children, loves to play with that part of the blanket in particular. She rubs it between her fingers and at night, sticks her finger through the loop in order to keep it close to her as she sleeps.

Still not seeing the issue, are you? Me either.

When I put her to bed at night, I find the tag and hand it to her. I've even helped her get her finger into the loop. Her obsession with the tag is perfectly normal. There's a whole company called Taggies that was built around this knowledge that for whatever reason, kids love the tags!

But last night, as she slept with her finger in the loop of the tag on her blanket, it got so twisted up that it cut the circulation off of her finger! Kind of like how a dog's tail might be docked. It didn't wake her up right away, so by the time she did wake & start crying, her finger was BLACK!! It took about 10 minutes to get it back to a somewhat normal pink. Talk about scary!!!

Later this morning, her finger still showed signs of the event.







I try to stay pretty level-headed about most things, not freak out too much, and realize that kids are going to get hurt & putting them in a bubble is neither practical nor productive, but from now on I will be cutting open any tags that go into her bed. I never would have thought that something so benign as a tag on my kid's favorite blanket could be a safety hazard, but this could have been REALLY serious! I am so thankful that Little might be quite a bit more in need of some snuggles today, but is still the proud owner of 10 fully functioning fingers!



Now please, go grab some scissors and cut open any tag loops that may find their way into your child's bed! Blankets, pillows, stuffed animals. . .inspect everything. It's not likely to happen to you, too, but let's make sure it doesn't!!

And, I'm suggesting we only cut open the loops, rather than remove them because I know that Little does like to hold onto it and I don't want to take that away from her entirely – just keep her safe!

Are there any other safety hazards out there for kids that I need to know about? Ones that a novice Mommy would never suspect??

xoxo—Lori Danelle