a wedged nate in a great tightness

It had been a pretty uneventful afternoon. Minus some issues with rest time, it had been a great day. The boys were playing really well together, and I was able to get a head start on cleanup and dinner. Then the noises began. They went something like “Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, OUCH!” and then, “Daddy, come up here!” I met Noah at the stairs and he said, “Daddy, Nate’s stuck.”

Let me preface this with: this has happened before. Nate has been stuck before. Not quite like this, and not with this much drama, but the kid loves to try to stick his hands, elbows and legs in places. This time, he really couldn’t get out.
The boys have these cool animal chairs we got from some good friends. One is a tiger and one is a zebra. The zebra has a small space between the mane and the ears. Nate’s arm was wedged there.
He was quite panicked, and if I breathed on him wrong he said, “ouch!” Step one, try to gently maneuver it out. No dice. Only screaming as if I had put his fingers in molten lava. I was gentle and careful. This is the same kid that broke his arm, so I wasn’t underestimating what he could have done.

Think. Oil! I ran downstairs grabbed some olive oil (and the camera), and back upstairs to see what I could do. Didn’t do anything except aggravate the child who also doesn’t like to be dirty.

I now explain to Nate that we either have to make his arm hurt a little or cut up the chair. The chair versus the limb was not a hard decision. He was now ready to destroy the chair. I hopped downstairs to the garage, grabbed my handsaw and back upstairs.

Every stroke of the handsaw brought, “Ouch, ouch ouch!” After about 5 times of that, I’d had enough. It was time to get the business done. Time for powertools.

Here is the thing I’ve learned about young boys this afternoon. If the situation is scary, don’t add sharp things and volume. I brought in my portable skil saw, talked clearly that it would be loud, put them in the appropriate safety gear, and fired her up. The moment the saw hit the wood and made that screaming sound that saws against wood make, my boys simultaneously reduplicated it. It wasn’t pretty. I consoled for about 10 minutes.

So it was back to the handsaw. Since I couldn’t get close enough to his arm without cutting him, I decided I’d try to cut a V in the wood and then try to break off the piece that was pinching him. Let’s just say that this was an arduous process. Every movement was a cry of agony. Unnecessarily so. I got the V cut out, but this chair was strong.

I then decided I could use the drill to drill some holes and weaken it. Nate was excited about the drill. He so bad wanted out. It had been about an hour since I had first gone upstairs.

Three precisely drilled holes later, and he was free! And the poor zebra had a haircut and was destined for scrap.