Blake gets a hair cut!

This is Blake after he went to the groomers yesterday. He had never been to the groomers in all his 2 1/2 yrs of life. He is a Brittany Spaniel and got by with the occasional bath in our tub, and a curry brush and occasional a brief encounter with the stripper thingy.

This is Blake BEFORE he went to the groomers. He do be a hippie dog. He wants to grow a Mohawk. Or maybe Robbie wants him to grow a mohawk. He also had a ton of burrs so Hippie Dog had to give up the natural life and go to the groomers.

This is Blake eager to say hi to his best friend Maui. "I've been gone all day buddy, wanna play?" Maui says "Who the H are YOU? What did you do with my best friend Blake?"

"Duh" I'm Blake you bone head!" "Nah, Blake has a mohawk going on and i love to hang on his feathers and bite his belly. You have NO MOHAWK and NO FEATHERS!" Hissssss!

"Get outta here! Wait till Blake comes home, he'll help me get you outta here!"

And Maui still will not play with Blake! Blake is mourning the fact that his friend is so upset with him. And he misses his mohawk. Now he sorta looks like a tallish fat beagle!

Silly stuff

The kids usually have popsicles when we get home from the park at night. They like the kind that have jokes or riddles on the popsicle stick. KC is at the age where jokes are huge with him right now and in fact Robbie is saving up a list of some of the "best" jokes to make KC his own joke book for Yule.

However tonight Lissa showed she wanted to get into the act. As I was doing the dishes, she held the stick exactly as if she was reading the joke off it and said: "ooma why frog chase cat?" I obliged with "I don't know!" (really who DOES know the answer to that question????" LOL Apparently Lissa does as she read "to cross street!" ROFL

Fiona moved yesterday

From the info that the sw gave me last week, Fiona should have been moved yesterday to her new residential facility. I mailed a letter to her at that address yesterday afternoon so she should get it this week. I want to make sure she gets mail from us right away so that she knows her connection to us continues uninterupted. I am going to try and call the sw next wk and see if she has a name of a therapist or clinician that I will have as a contact there. In the past I have always had someone that I could call if I want to say mail a gift card for Fiona, or to ask if it okay to get certain things for her for gifts. So I am hoping for that info in the near future.

The saga of spilled spaghetti

Well dining al fresco gave a bit of excitement tonight and not too much in the way of dining. We usually eat on our deck on nice nights. We all love it and it is fun to look at the flowers and our overgrown back yard, listen for birds and chat with passing neighbors. (although the deck is in the back of our house, one neighbors driveway is so close to us that we could practically reach out and touch em!"

Anyway, Rob was helping bring out the food as he usually does. However he had forgotten Lissa's tray and since I was strapping her in, I asked him to grab the tray for me. K didn't know about the tray and also suggested on his way out the door that he get one of the two remaining plates of pasta.

One of Rob's issues is a reluctance to do a lot of verbal speaking. I think his early years taught him that speaking up meant negative consequences and it is going to take more years than I have put in so far (and sometimes I fear more years than we may HAVE) to teach him that speaking up is GOOD. Applauded. Desired. He also freezes when frightened. It is his PTSD response.

So I strapped Lissa in to her high chair and turned away to do some other pre-dining prep. LIssa was howling as she wanted to ride her rocking horse and didn't like the idea of waiting till after supper. So I didn't think anything amiss till suddenly I noticed the shrieks were not her usual "angry diva princess" screams. I turned and saw my daughter covered in pasta all over one side of her body. The sauce had just come from the stove to the plate. We are talking serious heat. Rob was just standing there staring, holding the tray and the empty pasta plate. I grabbed a water glass and dumped it on Lissa and took off her sundress. Thankfully she didn't have lots of layers of clothes.

I got one strap off and the other was confounding me. I grabbed the second glass of water and dumped that as well. By now, Kirsty was out on the deck hearing the commotion. She is a wonderful person and a caring mom. But she doesn't do well in medical emergencies. She stands there yelling. That is her fear response, just like Rob's is standing still.

I finally got the poor child out of her high chair and ran to our side yard and plopped her in the kiddie pool that thankfully had just been put to use earlier today. Started checking her all over and looking for signs of reddening (hard to find on dark skin which is always a worry to me) and blistering.

By now one set of neighbors had come over to see what was wrong. I explained while checking Lissa. They are new folk and i am so grateful that they hopped the fence to see. Bodes well for the relationship between us!

I am even more grateful that Lissa seems fine. There is no blistering, only very slight reddening in one area and that. is. it. I have reassured Rob, we have all spent an hour playing in the sand box and the kiddie pool and with water soakers. She is okay.

Taking Care of the Nana

My mom has always "Promised" that when her husband passed away she would be "moving home." Moving home was code for moving in with Kirsty and I. I am lucky enough to live in a home that has been in our family 4 generations. I have always told her she could live with us. K is understanding of that, bless her heart. I love my mom but she is not an easy woman.

You know the glass half full people? Mom is not one of them! LOL If it is a sunny day, it is too bright. If someone does something helpful, there is an ulterior motive. Somehow, despite this abundant lack of cheer, she has managed to cultivate a cadre of friends in the state she presently lives in. They are good people. Really really good. They showed up at Ken's memorial service. They routinely invite her out for coffee or to events with them etc. I think they should all be canonized because it has made the fact that mom lives 2 1/2 hours away, work. We go often ( every 4 to 6 wks) to visit her. Once it is the whole family, the next time just K. She and K have a ball together.

However the rub comes now that she is truly alone. Her apartment building is up for sale. Though the existing landlord has written leases trying to ensure his favorite tenants (of which Mom is one) get to maintain their amazingly low rent, it is unlikely a new owner will be able to accommodate those rents. And truthfully a new landlord is under no legal obligation to continue those leases. The buildings need updating and that will be their justification and it will be valid. But it might also price mom right out of her apartment. Said apartment is also on the second floor and the stairs to her unit are not the best, particularly for a woman who broke her ankle 3 years ago.

Mom has a cat. When we agreed she could live with us (some 20 yrs ago) Mom did not have a cat. Ken did not like pets and they were not part of their life. However when he went into the nursing home, my sisters cat became my mothers and a loving (though slightly crazed) bond was formed between mom and cat. The thing is, Kirsty is really allergic to cats. We have one cat who isn't the cuddly kind. He is the "keep the old house free of mice" kind of cat. A working cat, as we put it. Mom babies her cat to the point of absurdity. She frets any time my children walk near it. Having the cat in a house with our dog would never work. Our dog and our cat wrestle. Mom would have a heart attack if the dog tried to wrestle her cat. Or her cat would. And Kirsty who has to take allergy meds to visit my mom, would have to take them daily to live in her own home.

So I looked into senior housing in our town. I expected a long wait list. I have been told that due to a weird convergance of events the wait list is amazingly short at the moment. We are talking zero to six months. Mom is alternately thrilled and horrified. The units available are exactly where she would love to live. But she had hoped for more time so that she could enjoy the state she presently lives in without the burden of worrying about getting to the nursing home daily. I get that. However the other reality is that if she does not apply now, the waiting list will suddenly mushroom up again in to a long wait. And she doesn't want that. So she has decided she will at least put in the application and get the letter from her doctor that will state that she has no family nearby to help with medical needs. The housing authority will then waive the requirement that she reside in our city at this very moment

I feel badly that she will not get the time she hoped for in the state she lives in now. But I also feel sad that she can't see a glass half full. This gives her an opportunity to keep her beloved cat, to be near her grandchildren, both my kids and my sisters. When my eldest heard she was thinking of returning to our city, he said he would walk down to see her once a week. Not to be outdone, my Rob promptly wanted to schedule his visit. I know that it will be hard to reestablish herself here. 20 years is a long time away and life has changed greatly here. She isn't sure she wants to attend the same church she attended before. Friends from years past have by and large moved on. This doesn't mean new friendships can not be forged. I offered for instance to bring her to our church if she was interested. (It is the same faith that she practices). She could volunteer locally and make new friends. She could take trips via a very active senior citizens center. She can come to our house for holidays with ease and Sunday dinners or Saturday night suppers if she chooses.

When she lived here before her marriage to Ken, we were definately young women living in her home. Now this is our home, our responsibility and our life is very different with an active family of four children. Trust me there are not a lot of candlelit dinners at our house at this point. I remember that in those days, my mom had lit candles on the table every evening. She needs to be able to have her own place as long as she can, so she can enjoy time with us but also have time for candles and quiet moments. I can't make those moments happen for her here!

All of this is compounded by the problem of the way in which my mother has always viewed me. I am the solution person; her go to person when she wants an answer. Not giving an answer is not an option. She gets angry and hurt and down right nasty. And this has been the dynamic since the year I was 9 and her mother died. So she wants me to provide a housing solution for her. But that doesn't mean that she will embrace the situation even if she agrees to it. And she is only 76. If she lives as long as Ken that gives her at least 20 years to tell me daily how miserable she is!!! LOL

Slower Sunday

We needed a day to recharge after the drive and the service of Saturday. So I didn't really plan anything for Sunday. I vaguely hoped for a beach jaunt but the sun went in after 15 minutes never to be seen again, so that was out.

We drove to a town a few towns over to try to price pellet stoves. I had called their store and they opened at 10. Except that at 10 they were not open and there were no signs of life. At 10:15 there were still no more signs of life. Unless you count the wild life in my car--3 kids totally done with sitting doing nothing for 15 minutes! LOL We left.

On the way home we stopped at the farmers market where we used to pick up our CSA boxes in years past. We couldn't afford to do a CSA this year and I have felt terrible about it. I am as much of a locavore as i can be. I don't want to eat lettuce shipped in from Guatamala or something. But I didn't have the upfront money this year and while Curt's prices for CSA are very fair, I just couldn't do it.

On the plus side, he was glad to see us. The kids went and looked at the pig in the barn and K shopped for kale and fresh beans and beets and chatted. He said it has been such a bad growing seasons some farmers have had to let their CSA members know that there will be NO tomatos in their boxes this season. Can you imagine a summer without local vine ripened tomatos? This is a tragedy to me of Shakespearean levels. We bought tomatos from Curt, thankfully his CSA has fewer but still delicious ones. K cooked them down into a most scrumptious bruschetta for lunch. There is nothing like bruschetta in the summer on warm italian bread. Mmmmmm

I worked on scrapbooks in the afternoon and in the evening. Worked till I ran out of glue sticks and pages in KC's book. K will have to add some new ones for me. The way to attach them baffles me and takes me way longer than it does her. Last year I was so good and kept the scrapbooks up all year long. It is easier that way as I do one for each kid. But my last entries were from New Years so there was a lot of ground to cover. Rob's book is totally done up to date now and KC is done through April so he is nearly done. Then I have to do Miss Lissa's. When they are all up to date, then I have to do a couple special memorial pages about their grampa to start off the month of August and then I can sit back and pat myself on the back.

The kids look at these books so much. I find Rob paging through his at odd moments. I am not sure that he doesn't have some short term memory issues, though there is no formal dx. But looking back seems to spark remembrance and help to center him. He is actually on scrapbook number 3 now, the other 2 having gotten too fat to add more pages to without breaking the bindings.

In there somewhere too was supper, another delicious feast of kale lightly sauteed and eggs with corn bread on the side. I swear I was a southern tenant farmer in a past life or something. I adore greens. Turnip greens, collards, and kale are my favorite but I don't sneer at chard or spinach either. And fresh kale is rarely bitter, especially the oak leaf variety K bought yesterday.

Then we found a spider in her web on our back porch. It was so cloudy you could not see the web and she looked suspended in mid air. I got a spray bottle of water and gently misted the web area so the kids could see the anchor lines and all the delicate pathways of web that the spider had created. It was fun watching their faces as the web became revealed to them.

Went for a short walk up a few streets with KC and Lissa to see the lady who has two ducks for pets. When I don't know what to do, walking up to see Geezy and Cami almost always gets a green light from the littles. And it is just far enough that they will settle well for bed after the jaunt.

Now it is back to the work day week and shifting gears to accomodate the challenges that go with that.

Memorial Service Done

Thankfully we have all survived the memorial service. It was hard on the kids. A long drive (2.5 hours) then a short time at my moms which allowed limited moving around, a chance to eat, and changing into church duds. Then another drive to the church so that they could sit through an hours service. This meant I had a 2 year old who had not napped and had been awake since 5:30 that morning. A 5 year old whose emotions were very ragged, a 13 year old who was fine, and a 23 year old who was stressing and causing stress. He was hot, he was in others space, he was not comfortable in his own space. His lack of connection to emotions made for constant attention to him. Family were supposed to sit in the front rows. We sat in the row that appeared open behind family. Then my mother came and moved my sister and her family to sit up in the very front row with her. Nice. So now there was this big empty row dividing us from all the other family. In the interest of practicality this did ensure that I could worry less about what my kids might do. In reality I felt positively alienated.

That continued basically through the whole experience. My sister had been invited to participate in the service. I was not. I was told that only one person from our side of the family could speak and my mother had decided it would be younger sister. Yup. fine. Part of me shrugs mentally and says "whatever". Part of me childishly is angry. We have consistantly been there for my mom and her husband. Our kids really know and love them. Sis visited like 3 times in 10 years and 2 of those times my mom paid for her to come. Her kids have come probably twice counting the memorial service. So it seems unfair. Life is unfair. I need to shut up and move on.

During the service I was busy enough containing Chet and helping KC and watching Lissa--why did I want to add speaking to those responsibilities? KC broke down twice and needed extra cuddling. Lissa was just fractious from being massively overtired (she doesn't sleep well or long in a car). After the service there was a lovely luncheon and a chance to mingle and talk. The kids really needed to burn off steam though and there was a playground outside. They were pulling me toward the door so I went outside with them. It was blazingly hot and I spent a great deal of time inadvertantly aerating the lawn of the playground as I trotted around in my 3 1/2 inch heels playing with the kids. I had play clothes to change into but no time or way to do that; their need to run and move was so profound. I kept thinking that K would come out and switch off with me so that I could go chat with people I have not seen in ages. (they are mostly only relatives by marriage; Ken's family is very large but there are several that I am very friendly with)

K didn't show up. The funny part of this--and it TRULY is funny--is that K hates social chatting. She is very much the introvert and I am not. So while I am stuck on the playground she is stuck inside and it never occured to her to go switch places. So it was just as hard for her as it was for me. By the time the kids were ready to go back inside we really had to get going as the long homeward drive awaited and it wouldn't get any easier for delaying. So I got to wave quickly at everyone I wanted to see and we headed out.

On the trip home, KC slept nearly the whole way--which meant it was hard to get him to bed last night. But he was emotionally worn to a nubbin so I was glad that he could rest. Lissa napped briefly but not enough to really require changing up her schedule. She and i took a walk after supper, admiring mosses growing between the cracks of the sidewalk and the first changing leaves ( what's up with that!!!) Picked wild queen anne's lace for our kitchen vase and walked home. KC was still too emotionally beat to want to come, a true rarity for him.

Today will be a quieter day so that everyone can start the week more centered, more at peace.