Our son needed a bath, Husband was on his last legs, so I came into bathroom to assist with little one in his baby bath. We have a set up of a bath board with slats, that sits across our big deep main bath and a baby bath is put on top of the bath board. Husband holds onto baby and bath as his arms are normal length and grown normally, I do the finer motor controls of washing our child as my fingers have a little more dexterity.
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| Bath slat board from OT across our bath which has thick ledges around it, husband sits on ledge and holds bath and baby in position. |
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| Bath in position for washing our child. |
After the usual covering mummy and daddy in water and giggling, we had a sparkling clean little man. I can not lift a wet baby out of the bath ever so that is Daddy's job. I then empty the baby bath by twisting bath on board so plug on baby bath is hanging over board and water can drain freely from it into our big bath. I remove toys and let them dry on a corner of the slat bath board. Now all this usually runs smoothly but not today, oh no silly me, not today!!!
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| Bath twisted round so baby bath plug over bath board, then plug pulled so water drains into bath without having to lift heavy baby bath of water about etc. Usually works very well! |
I am currently standing on one leg which has wasted muscles and replaced joints, some of which are old and on waiting list for updating next year, using both arms with broken shoulders, absent shoulder blades and one left elbow in dire need of replacing ,supporting almost my entire body weight via gutter crutches, meanwhile my current replaced ankle is suspended in a dead weight moon boot thing, I twisted baby bath, massively wobbling as I did,thinking I can do this! I stupidly removed one crutch and stood there, whole weight on one crutch and one leg, tried to tip rest of water from baby bath which was only an inch and hardly weighty, but like a game of Jenga it was too much for my body and I tipped up head first in adult bath along with the baby bath,snaked my right eye on the baby bath rim!!!! There I remained calm, legs in air, husband in other room said "are you ok?" where I said "bit of a situation here". Like the giant turnip my husband came to drag me out of the bath! Naked child was sat on the floor wondering what the heck mummy was up to and laughing!
Bath time seems to always lead to life mischief times!
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| Fantastic children's book but the culprit for the next round of bath time mayhem! |
On a separate occasion, recently, my husband held the bath, this time I thought for some unknown reason, I could quickly grab a few things for our son when he got out the bath so as to avoid him being cold. I went to grab a baby vest from his drawer hobbled back to his bed which took five minuets to do. Lay vest and his towel out on his bed which took two minuets, then thought this room is a total tip and tried to tidy up a few books in a very short time which took ten minuets. I forgot how awful the smallest tasks are when you have no means of walking or getting about a room you are currently in ,let alone trying to get to other rooms in the house. There I was hobbling with one book, "Bored Claude" as it happens, an average sized rectangle book with maximum of twelve pages so hardly heavy. However the way I have to hold anything whilst trying to move my gutter crutches, I have to find a corner of the crutches to support either corner of the book so the book was almost a screen in front of my face! Of course the inevitable happened, I put a crutch on a plastic tea set plate on the floor!!! Bang crutch went under me, I reacted instantly ,to save me falling and braking something, by putting weight on new ankle in cast! One very sore ankle and being told that I now have another six weeks non weight bearing! So so so stupid of me! I kicked myself inside, rang up Adult Social Services to try get some carers as a gut reaction of anger that my husband and I are not given any help and seen as life's determined coping happy people! Fortunately for me I was met with usual red tape of separate numbers to call etc and by then husband talked sense into me and said I just had to accept for a while I couldn't do the usual things with my son, it wouldn't last, he knows that and I know it and having the blue rinse brigade carers coming in, taking away our independence on when we want and how we want to do things is no option! Do we really want our child around people who boil a whole bag of fresh pasta thinking that anything in a bag must be a "boil in the bag" item! Yeah we have had others tell us of such stories!
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| Messy room, book worm can get all his books down now and they do just that, all come down! |
Stupid "Bored Claude" a cracking children's book but was looking untidy and got in my way! Stupid plastic duck that I was trying to shake water out off at the same time as emptying baby bath, stupid plastic tea set plate. That day things were put in the toy box, that day my assistant dog was set to work tidying. That day my dog came in to the lounge and rolled on her back,summing up the general exhaustion of the day.
However through all this we never let our son see the struggles, every situation is dealt with in calm tones, fortunately husband and I can still laugh together at the end of another crazy day and we try to make sure the little man goes to bed with a smile on his face. Not always easy when your body is screaming ago y and eyes need sticks to prop them up but I still say being a parent, no matter what our situation, is the happiest thing to happen to me in my life x
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