Lucky stars!

Somebody, somewhere was watching out for us last night.

Last night Mike and I went to the Greek Food Festival of Dallas. It was the first time we ever really brought Jocelyn out to anything. She was a total champ, of course. I think she really loved the sights, sounds and people. Nursing her out in a public forum like that is hard, but I worked it out with minimal awkwardness. But that is not what this post is about.

We were inspired to leave by the onset of Jocelyn's fussiness. It was mild, and a bit of on-the-spot nursing stemmed it, but we knew that she was ready to melt down. So Mike suggested that I carry her rather than strap her into the stroller. Okay, this makes sense. So I carried her until we were out of the festival grounds.

Then it occurred to me that the long walk back to the car was poorly paved and cracked. I decided that in the dark, on a bad sidewalk, and after I had a (single) drink, I didn't feel comfortable carrying Jocelyn. Call me paranoid, but whatever. So we strapped her down and hoped that there would not be a meltdown.

Well, it was a good thing we did. Because there was a very uneven piece of broken sidewalk that I turned my ankle on. I went flying. I hit the ground hard. I mostly caught myself on my hands (which I scraped the hell out of, by the way), and I smashed my boob pretty badly. I'm fine, just a few scrapes and bumps. But could you imagine if I was carrying a baby? Who knows what would have happened? Would I have dropped her? Sent her flying? Rolled in order to protect her and broken my shoulder in the process? I don't know! And I am glad that I don't need to find out. She was safely in her stroller, with dad pushing her.

But if I was pushing her and still fell? We were walking down a busy street. She could have rolled or tipped into traffic. She can't sit in the stroller yet, so we put her in the car seat and snap that onto the stroller at this point. It's very top-heavy.

But I'm still shaken. I keep on playing the what-if game. I mean, I thought about not bringing the stroller at all and just wearing her. Now I am completely paranoid about that! I mean, I do fall down a lot. What if I fell while wearing her? I don't want to think about it, yet I can't help but think about it. It's probably part of why I slept like garbage last night (coupled with a Greek frappe, allergies and a throbbing hand). I am playing out all of these horrible scenarios in my head, over and over again. As if I wasn't paranoid enough, it was one small decision to move her to the stroller instead of carrying her, and the simple action of her dad pushing her instead of me, that saved my baby from potentially serious injury. These were random decisions, and not intrinsically smarter or safer decisions. And now I'm kind of a mess. And my hand really freakin' hurts!