Restoring Competence for Homemaker & Parent Roles
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It was unthinkable, so she pretty much didn't think about it. Left arm gone right below her armpit--thanks gangrene--and that was that. She didn't have time to think about it this morning anyway because the little dude needed his cereal and the woman from that place was going to be here any second. No doubt that was just going to waste more of Dana's time because the woman would suggest hiring help and buying nonsense Dana could never afford. Honestly, she wished everyone would back off. She could take care of Lance just fine if they'd leave her alone long enough to do it.
So of course the doorbell rang while she was still trying to get the belt buckle on Lance's highchair snapped, a move that required her to smash her nose up against her baby's belly while she breathed through teeth clenched on a nylon strap. She almost had it.
"Is it okay if I come in?" a female voice called.
"YES!" Dana yelled as loudly as she could through her teeth and the fabric of Lance's pajamas. She was not stopping until she had that buckle snapped even if her neck cramped up completely. Footsteps approached and--yes! That buckle was in.
"Hi little guy," the woman grinned at Lance who took a second before offering back his baby Elvis smile. "Okay," the woman turned to me, "that buckle? That was impressive."
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The weird thing was the OT's visit had actually gone okay. The velcro ideas were going to save her jaw and teeth. And yeah, if there was a meetup group of parents that had lost limbs she could probably go sometime.
It was weird really because it hadn't been weird. She hadn't tried to get Dana to wear that stupid heavy, pain-in-the-neck fake arm or to hire a nanny. She hadn't gone bug-eyed when Dana had admitted she'd been co-sleeping with Lance because she couldn't haul him out of his crib. After all the ranting her mom had done about babies dying from co-sleeping, she could not wait to get on the phone and inform her that it was perfectly fine when done right, thank you very much. They'd moved the bed up against the wall so now Dana wouldn't even need to worry about him rolling and falling off.
So yeah, it really hadn't gone bad. Of course as the lady had pointed out, Dana probably would have come up with all this stuff on her own eventually. It was just good to not have to waste all that time figuring it out.
She had a million things to do.
