Last night we had some very dear and old friends over for dinner. We used to spend several evenings a month with them before we all had children. Now they have two beautiful girls, ages 4 and 2. What Michael and I had hoped would be a lovely evening sharing pizza and watching our children play together became my own personal mommy nightmare.
It was the end of the night and miraculously the guest children had not noticed nor commented on Madeleine's leg. I was pondering how this was so unusual as all the kids were taking turns walking on the treadmill in their bare feet of socks. Madeleine had bare feet.
Right before our friends were to leave Madeleine decided that she wasn't getting enough attention and yelled to the girls, "look at me.... I'm taking my leg off!" she kicked her prosthesis off, sending it flying across our living room. Our guests kept their composure (good parenting!) and just looked wide eyed. I apologized and bid our friends good night.
When they were gone Madeleine and I had a long chat. She admitted that she felt the girls liked Max better so she wanted to get some attention. I explained to her how inappropriate it was and that she should have shown the girls her leggie first and then described the procedure and her distal limb.
sigh.
