Grooming Groans

From infancy Katie had a serious aversion to having her nails trimmed.  (Probably not helped at all by the time I cut a huge chunk out of the tip of her finger while she was flailing around trying to elude me, poor thing!)  At first I thought it was just because her little infant nail beds were a little irregular, and they'd get better as she grew.  But it didn't, she continued to scream like I was taking off the fingers (or toes) themselves.  I started having to clip them while she was asleep.

Combing/brushing hair was much the same.  Thank goodness she was so bald for so long, because as soon as there was anything to comb out it was like torture.  She wanted to have long "princess" hair, but couldn't stand for me to touch it.  As mentioned in the post about bathing,  she absolutely could not cope with having her hair washed either, so her scalp got a thick brown waxy build up all over it.  It was truly disgusting and embarrassing.

She never had a real haircut at a salon until she was almost 4, because I knew she'd flip out if anyone tried to come near her head.  We finally managed it by going to Kid's Cuts, where she could be pampered and distracted by movies.  Shampooing there, of course, was out of the question, as was the noisy hair dryer.  But all in all we managed without too many tears.  She still cries every morning when I brush out her hair, and though her fingernails aren't so sensitive anymore, she still swears it hurts when I have to do her toes.