Love Thursday--Love is Having Someone to Spend Time With:

Grandma Dorothy moved in with us nearly two years ago when her last cargiving-capable family member died. My husband had been friends with her brother, and had grown to know Dorothy well over the years. The last few years with her previous caregiver she did not receive the best care, and we often ranted that we ought to just go get her and have her live with us. And then the opportunity presented itself. I think in hindsight I kind of steamrolled my husband into taking her in--it's a big decision to take in a disabled elderly person, especially when there's no blood tie--but I haven't regretted it. Still mentally active but completely bedridden, the only option for her would be a medicare nursing home, and I've been to enough of those in my time to NOT want that except as a last resort.

But, sometimes I wonder about the quality of life she has here. We have a nice yellow-brick-road-yellow room for her; she's surrounded with her own personal effects and family photos; she has her phone and her television and the sun comes in in the morning to flood the room with light. But ours is a three-story townhouse and her bedroom is alone at the bottom of the house. All of the living takes place above her head. Some days I manage to get down and sit with her for an hour, other days the only person to person interaction she gets is a couple of minutes three-four times again when passing on food. We moved her away from her church community of 60+ years to a place an hour away and she just doesn't get many visitors. She has her telephone friends, and a companion aide who comes in for 2 hours 2x a week, but--and especially at the holidays--it's still a solitary life.

Until this week, anyway. Roran was a Christmas present I got myself. But he's adopted Dorothy's hospital bed as home base. When he's not out exploring the house, he's on her. She's mom. He sleeps on her legs, rests on her shoulder, plays with her fingers, wakes her up by chewing on her glasses when he wants attention, and listens intently to all she has to say. I know as he grows older and becomes more indepenedent he'll probably not spend as much time with her (16 hours yesterday, by my calculations), but oh how I hope he does! Because she's SO happy to have a friend. And sometimes love is just having a friendly face to talk to.

For more Love Thursday Posts, visit Chookoolonks or the Love is all around us Flikr Pool.

Introducing....Roran Kitty

He's one cute little bundle of fur! Eregon and Saphira's half-brother at least (who knows who the dad may be?), he's got Saphira's 6 toes and will probably have her soft fur too. 6-7 weeks old, we've only had him for 6 hours, so hard to know too much about him, but he's definately making himself at home. He's already had a nap with Grandma Dorothy, stolen all the food he could find, and been tearing around the house on a grand exploration. The boys have been fighting over him, but so far mom's been able to win the most time.

Happy Love Thanksgiving Thursday!

Here's Daniel, singing you the "Turkey Song"

("The turkey is a funny bird, his head goes wobble wobble.

He can say, just one word, gobble, gobble, gobble").

We hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful, loving and stress-free day with family and friends.

For more Love Thursday, visit Chookooloonks or the Love is all around us Flikr Pool

Love Thursday 11/16/06

Today is a gray, chilly, rainy day which started off with a bang when we had to take Miss Saphira to the Vet because her spay incision seems to have become infected. We've all been a little grumpy today. But the solution is clear--Love means having a warm place to nap on a cold rainy day!
Mom is going to join everyone under the covers as soon as this post is done.

For more Love, visit Chookooloonks or the Love is all around us Flikr pool. Stay happy and warm!

Feline Friday--Anthropomorphism

The lovely Miss Saphira turned 6 months old today. We celebrated by having her spayed. It's funny, but I feel really sorry for her today: I struggled with infertility, and it seems really sad to me that she will never know the joy of having babies. OK, stupid, I know, but that's how I would feel if it happened to me! Thankfully, I retain at least one shred of sanity and never questioned having her fixed--we do NOT need to contribute to the excess pet population! This sane part of me knows she'll be happier, healthier, calmer etc. But the sensitive, sentimental side of me wonders if we've somehow taken something from her... The trials and tribulations of pet stewardship...

For more Friday fuzzies, visit the Friday Ark.

These are a few of my favorite....

Ben turned six this week, and I've spent quite some time going through six years of photographs. Funny, Serious, Comical, Confrontational, Sweet, Six-going-on-sixteen-going-on-sixty...My big boy and forever my baby. Love personified. Happy Love Thursday, Everyone. To share more love, visit Chookoolonks or the Flickr Pool Page.

SIX YEARS OF BEN

Ben is turning SIX. How on earth did THAT happen? For six years, we have watched him grow from a not-so-tiny baby (9 pounds, 6 oz at birth) to a strong-willed, curious, independent, funny schoolboy. How did the time go so fast? I can hardly remember his learning to crawl, or starting to walk and talk, or the "happy feet dance" he used to do. Now he's 2/3 my height, understands many of the words we used to be able to spell out to keep him from knowing what we were talking about, takes karate and even plays ice hockey (lord help me). Happy Birthday, Ben! Keep learning and growing (but take it easy on your mom, please?).

A Fan is Born...

We took the boys to see a Washington Capitols hockey game. Ben is convinced they won because HE was cheering for them. I kinda felt sorry for some of the people around us--Ben kept chanting "Let's go Caps" over and over and over and over and over and... He had SO much fun. Little brother thought it was OK, but he doesn't quite get the whole thing yet. Next time he and I will stay home and watch it on TV, and let Dad and Ben have the long trek downtown. Both kids loved the metro ride, though. Boys and trains.

Conflict Resolution

The other day Ben was really mad at me. I don't remember why--I think we probably laughed at something he didn't want us to laugh at. I happened to have my camera sitting next to me, and snapped the progression--from yelling, to threatening, to ignoring, to all is right with the world. It's really interesting living with a 5-almost-6-year-old sometimes. He's trying so hard to understand the world--to understand humor, to understand the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behavior, to understand where he stands in the family and in the world. There were, of course, many words exchanged between us at each stage of the above. The thing that finally won a smile was a contest between us--I was snapping pictures as he was moving his head back and forth--he thought he was moving too fast for me to catch his face, and he liked the fact that he was "thwarting" my efforts to catch a picture. By the end he was laughing and all was right with the world again. I love this series of pictures. It reminds me that, even though we have our (sometimes very) trying times, there's often a smile at the end.
Happy Saturday!

Friday Cat Blogging--the Lovely Miss Saphira aka "Saffy Cat"

Miss Saffy sits in the sun--one of her favorite activities. She's almost 6 months old now, and starting to feel her hormones surge. She's been really crazy for the past few days. Earlier this week I awoke to find the bathroom floor covered in about 1/2 inch of SHREDDED toliet paper. I mean she absolutely KILLED almost an entire roll. I don't know how long it took her, but it took me the better part of an hour to clean up all the pieces. She's missing her playmate brother Eregon, I guess. She's also been spending a lot of time outdoors, and I've noticed a few male cats that I've never seen before hanging around. That will be short-lived (I hope)--she goes to the vet next week for spaying. She's our sweet little girl, and we love her.

Love Thursday 11/2/06

Ben is not always kind to his little brother. He really doesn't like having the competition. But last week Ben's class went on a field trip to a farm having a fall festival. Daniel had a bad cold and wasn't feeling his best, and the weather was terrible (cold and rainy) but he was SO excited at the prospect of field trip that I was bad mother and let him come along. [Okay, really bad mother--he later came down with pneumonia]. Ahem, I digress. The POINT of this Love Thursday post is that Ben went out of his way to help little brother do all the hard stuff--like climb to the top of this Hay Roll Pyramid. And that's the kind of brotherly love that warms a mother's heart. Happy Love Thursday! Check out other entries at Chookooloonks, or the Flickr pool. And check out Mir's fabulous Love Thursday news and send her congratulations!