The Claw! The Claw!

Cardin has been doing this weird thing with her fingers lately so that it appears as though her hand is misshapen and it is very unnerving to me.  She crosses her ring finger over her pinky and maintains this posture with ease.

Now, I can’t seem to perform this finger crossing act voluntarily, I actually need to position my fingers that way using my other hand. Not only does she perform this finger crossing without an assist, she holds it there for minutes and hours.  Listen Lady, once my fingers are in place I can’t seem to hold this awkward position for more than 10 seconds without my fingers rebutting this stance. IT’S UNNATURAL.

The thing that is so unnerving to me is that she’ll actually hold this claw-like position with her fingers while performing other daily tasks; eating, playing, sleeping, etc. If I stopped concentrating on maintaining the awkward finger position for more than 1 second I would lose it. Not her. She’ll sit there and eat a whole grilled cheese with her claw hands without even thinking about it.

Since she doesn’t understand what I mean when I’m all “stop doing that weird finger thing”, I’ve resorted to a new method of ingenuity.  Anytime I see her unconsciously holding her fingers in the claw formation, I ask her to pound. A little fist bump and the claw hand goes away.  Most of the time the claw goes away for a fleeting second and when it remerges my irrational fear comes rushing back that her hands may end up looking like this.

After hours of thought, I’ve uncovered why the misshapen hand seems to cause so much angst. Long ago, in my youth, I played Varsity Tennis. At the time, I was playing doubles with a very good friend of mine and we had just finished a match. I don’t remember if we won or lost, but I do remember that at the end of the match, we went to shake hands with the opposing team.  My doubles partner reached the opposing team first and shook their hands while I picked up the balls from the court. I quickly hustled over to show my sportsmanship and I vividly recall holding out my hand and receiving a death grip back from a girl who only had 2 fingers on her hand. TWO FINGERS. It looked as though she was constantly giving you the “hang 10” sign.

Being the good sportsman that I am, I was giving this girl direct eye contact when I shook her hand so you can imagine that I was taken aback when I could only feel two stumps and not a full hand shake. I looked down only to realize that this girl had played an ENTIRE MATCH against us holding her racket with these hang 10 fingers.

My doubles partner, who had also just discovered this tidbit about our opponent, turned around to watch my face as I shook the claw and realized what was going no. I was told that the look was priceless. I’m just going to take 2 seconds to say THANKS KOOP, that wasn’t awkward AT ALL!! We jogged off the court, busting at the seams in hysterics.

Come to think of it, it’s really not funny and the poor girl was probably bullied and harassed constantly through school. I’m sure we added to her discomfort. But HELL if I’m going to let my kid grow up to have a claw!