pinchy pinchy

I have some thingys to put on this blog thingy, but who has the time or energy.  Plus, having pictures seems to motivate me, and I haven't taken any for a while.  What I have taken is still on my camera, floating between all the millions of pictures Frank takes of little toy set ups that he wants to remember. Forever.  When I don't have a picture, the story never ends up here...

But here's a story without a picture:
Today we went to the Wildlife Museum.  My kids love that place.  We walked around for a while, and then were taking the elevator down to the first floor to leave.  Frank put his hand on the door as it was opening (I guess), and it sort of sucked all his fingers with it, and his hand was jammed between the elevator door and the frame that the door slides into.  He couldn't get his hand out, and the door wouldn't open or close.  So I'm pushing buttons to try to get the door to open or close or something?  and trying to keep him from pulling on his arm, because his fingers are all pinched and hurting and stuck, and he's like a wild animal in complete panic.  It was really fun.  One of the girls who works there comes to try to help, and she doesn't seem to know what she's doing.  Frank's still stuck.  Still screaming (maybe, I'm not entirely sure).  Finally she decides to push the door open, and as I see her doing it, I'm thinking to myself, that's going to hurt him more, and pull his hand in farther, but luckily it works.  She pushes it in all the way, and out comes his hand.  Very red, and pinched looking.  He's telling me that it hurts, and she's telling me that I really shouldn't let my kids do that.  Yeah.  Got it.  Never let your kid touch anything or they might get hurt.  Lesson learned, sixteen-year-old-girl-who-probably-hasn't-even-babysat-much, I won't let my kid casually touch an elevator door ever again lest some freak accident once again occurs.  Thanks for the advice.  Then she asks me if I want some ice.  Yeah.  We'll take a bag of ice to go.  It was a very traumatic experience for Frank, not really medically traumatic, but emotionally.  It's really awful to feel stuck, physically, or metaphorically, or emotionally or however.  I think for a moment or two he actually thought he would never get his hand out of there.  Poor kid.  An afternoon of playing Lego.com seems to have cured him.  His hand is still a little red, but he was able to fully operate the shooting mechanism of the helicopter on the World Racer game, and he has to use his left hand for that, so I guess there wasn't too much damage.  Moral of the story:  watch out for elevators or they'll get you.

p.s.  As I sit here thinking about this, I'm reminded of a certain incident at Target a few years back.  They have automatic doors, you know.  So nice when you have bags full of things to carry out.  Frank was little.  I went through the door, and he was following me, but curiosity overcame him and he decided that he simply must put his arm through the gap at the hinge of the automatic door.  There's such a lovely gap there, just right for sticking little arms through.  Not noticing his thought process, I'm through, and the door shuts.  And Frank screams, because his arm is now shut tightly in the hinge of the door.  I have to run through the non automatic door to activate the automatic door so that it will open and free his arm.  Lucky for him he was (is) a skinny little guy, so he got off with just a few nasty scratches on his arm, I assume more from him trying to pull his arm out than from the actual pinching of the door.     ...And there was the time I accidentally slammed his fingers in the door of Aaron's car, but not the opening part where a parent might actually be keeping an eye out for fingers.  He was on the other side of the car door, the back side, the hinge side, whatever you would call it.  He slipped his fingers in the crack and unknowingly, I closed the car door.  Stupid automatic locks... I had to find the key fob, unlock the door then free his little fingers.    So apparently Frank has a door thing, particularly involving the end of the door that you wouldn't particularly think is the dangerous end.  I should keep a closer eye on that I guess.  What do you know, the sixteen-year-old was right.