This is how my mom is doing.

slow day

Yesterday was a good, slow day with kids. Kind of felt like walking through molasses when I thought about trying to attend to the disaster of a house we are sitting in, but I try to remind myself that a clean home is not the most important thing!

Kids got up and Maggie wanted to do Math, so she got her workbook and brought it down to the couch and the three of us worked on it. Baby slept until 10:30 a.m. since she/we were up with teething and snotty nose the night before, so I could focus on kids more.

Then Frank wanted to play with animals (as usual!), so we decided to take them and sort them all by where they live. Grasslands, deserts, rainforest, moderate forest, ocean. We got their big book about animals out as a reference. Then Maggie wanted to look at their big book about the earth. Much interest in what is inside the earth, and good questions about why the waters of the ocean stick to the planet instead of flying off into outer space? Then looked at the chart of the solar system, which they both found fascinating. Baby woke up and I went up to get her, so Maggie took it upon herself to start reading the names of the planets on her own! Could my kids be any more enjoyable? Their bright and curious minds make them my favorite people to be with these days.

Maggie is getting really good at her writing now too. I compared what she did yesterday with what she did in the fall, and they are light years apart. I complimented her on her clear writing, and she said a simple "thank you!" without looking up from her work! This is also the child who taught herself to tie her shoes last fall because I kept saying "just a minute!" whenever she asked me for help.

How did I get so lucky to have such great kids?

phone calls

I got two calls from Ottumwa yesterday. The first one was the hospice social worker telling me that she had just seen my mom at the hospital and talked to her about going to Hospice House next. The SW had seen that the MD had recommended HH in the chart, instead of going back to home hospice. The SW said that my mom doesn't want to go to HH, but that she is willing to leave it up to her kids now. We've been very clear with hospice staff that we don't want her to stay at home for hospice, and Mike arrived in Des Moines last night. Hopefully she will get to HH today or tomorrow.

SW also said that she has been visiting with my mom every couple of days since I called last week and asked that mom and grandma get their emotional needs attended to by hospice. She said that my mom has been hard to work with because she is so attached to her denial that she is dying. SW asked me if I had any tips? I said work on Grandma. Grandma told me when I was alone with her last weekend that she knows there is a point where "you just know it's better not to go on like this". If grandma does some letting go and expresses this to my mom, then I think my mom will be able to also.

Then I had a call from a nice sounding Scottish lady asking for me? It turned out to me my mom's Pakistani doctor, Dr. Ahmed. She was returning my call from the previous day. She wanted to let me know that my mom's broncoscopy two weeks ago showed that she has something in her lung called MAI. It is a bacteria that people whose immune system is supressed are susceptible to. It is often found in AIDS patients or people who've had intensive chemo treatment. It causes skin lesions after a certain point. The treatment is heavy duty antibiotics, and the doctor did not recommend that mom get treated. She says it would be too hard on her already burdened system.

MD also expressed concern that my mom has not accepted that she is dying. I told her that the SW said that mom is getting mad now. Mad at her legs especially, because they are not working. Mad is good because it is movement away from denial, so SW encouraged her in this.

On Monday morning my mom did a lot of crying with me. It was like the floodgates opened as soon as she and I were left alone in her hospital room. I asked Freda if she has cried with her much, and she says no. I'm hoping that she will cry with Mike too, but I don't know if that will happen. My sense was that the release of tears is what she needs right now, and it broke my heart to leave her when I knew she needed more of this.

facts and poem

I got back last night. Spent most of the time in Iowa firefighting, putting out little family fires that have been starting since my mom's big seizure. Just things like trying to calm everyone's feelings after a Sunday brawl between two sets of mom's cousins in grandma's living room. And going to the bank lockbox to get grandma's deed and will so she feels less like Mike and I are on the verge of taking her house away from her?!? Sense? No, but crisis doensn't bring out our most sensible selves.

Mom is still in the hospital. Speech abilities come and go. Saturday night she was 100% herself, talking haltingly on politics and about the dogs. When I offered her some of the Paul Newman Orange flavored dark chocolate I'd brought for her, she grabbed the bar above her head and pulled herself up to sitting! That is my sugar fiend mom, being all herself!

Mom did a lot of crying yesterday while I was sitting with her, and also had a little seizure. She continues to have them, but no big seizures since Saturday morning.

Francesca was a GODSEND to me. I'm so glad she was there to be the person who I could talk to who is not too involved and not insane. Also had lunch with my sensible, sane grandma Wagner. Bean soup, carrot sticks, crackers with pimento cheese spread. Skim milk! A little infusion of balance and health before we went back to the hospital to say goodbye to mom and Grandma C. before heading home.

Francesca wrote . this

trip

I'm going to Ottuwma today, coming back tomorrow. My friend Francesca is coming with me, and that will be helpful.

Grandpa J. and Susie and friends are helping with childcare, so Tim is in good shape! Thanks for the love and support for all of us. We are blessed to have good friends and family looking out for us.

like labor

This morning I'm reminded of what it is like to be in labor. The pains get more intense and closer together as we move into transition.

Joe called me at 8:30 this morning. My mom had just had a half hour "hard" seizure. She is now able to look around and move, but she is not able to talk. Joe also said that grandma spent the night watching my mom, and that grandma has been getting confused and calling my mom Mary (grandma's sister).

I spent the morning waiting for the hospice nurse to show up and call me. When 10:00 rolled around I called back to find out that two hospice nurses were getting confused about who should go. This pissed me off, so I called the head hospice nurse, Sue, who saw my mom while I was there last weekend. She is also the nurse who was there when my uncle Mike died two years ago. I left a loud, unfriendly message for Sue with the answering service. 10 minutes later she called me because SHE was at the house assessing my mom's situation. (Sorry 'bout the message Sue!) Anyway, she said that because of the seizures not being controlled, she recommended to my mom that she go to hospice house to get the meds and care she needs to calm the seizing. Right now Sue is getting orders from the doctor to make this happen, and an ambulance will transport her.

Before Sue called me back, Freda and I spoke and she was planning to go down to Ottumwa from Des Moines and assess. Freda is still going, and will call me when she gets back to D.M.

HOLD ON! Sue just called back and said that the M.D. advised that mom be taken to the hospital to get seizures regulated, and that she will be there a few days. She said that we will assess then whether she will go to hospice house or home.

Jesus! Could someone just drive a stake through my heart now?!? I'm not good with having things up in the air, and this situation is pushing every last one of my "need to have closure" buttons. Okay, here we go for another round of not being settled and not knowing what to expect.

on the road again

Mom had another seizure today but still doesn't want to leave grandma's home. The hospice people brought her a lift to get her in and out of chair and bed. Mike has been doing the communication piece, and he planned to call mom tonight and advise her why she should go. The hospice social worker told him that it's still her choice, and that is what he will present to her. It's good that he is doing the talking, because I don't have the patience. He says that her thinking and speaking have really deteriorated over the past couple of days.

I vacillate between being angry and being sad, along with a constant feeling of helplessness. I imagine that what my mom is feeling is 100 times more intense, with a whole lot of fear and confusion mixed in.

I'm planning to leave Sunday to go to Ottuwma again. I may end up being the bad-ass daughter who "puts" mom in Hospice House, and I'm not looking forward to it.

caregiver burn-out

Joe called my brother today to tell him that my mom had fallen again. She also had another near fall, but caught herself against a wall. Mike said that it sounded like Joe was upstairs whispering into his cell phone so that my mom and grandma wouldn't hear.

Yesterday the priest told mom that he thinks she should go to Hospice House. I expected that sort of advice from an authority figure to get her there by today. But her fear seems to be overpowering all her other faculties. Joe said that mom is afraid of Mike and I because she thinks we will "make her" go to Hospice House.

This is exactly the scenario that I didn't want to see play out when my mom went to Ottumwa and decided to do home hospice. I felt guilty that Joe and Louise would be are ones stuck between a rock and hard place, caregiving in crisis. I know how much it sucks, and it doesn't seem right that they are in that position.

Mike is calling the hospice staff tomorrow to find out if there is even a spot open in Hospice House. I'm praying that there will be, and that mom will see that going there is what's best for everyone.

caregiving facts

Before last year I would not have paid attention to these stats:

More than 50 million people provide care for a chronically ill, disabled or aged family member or friend during any given year.

Caregiving is no longer predominantly a women's issue. Men now make up 44% of the caregiving population.

Caregivers providing care for a family member over the age of 50 routinely underestimate the length of time they will spend as caregivers - only 46% expected to be caregivers longer than two years. In fact the average length of time spent on caregiving was about eight years, with approximately one third of respondents providing care for 10 years or more.

Most women will spend 17 years caring for children and 18 years helping an elderly parent.

The value of the services family caregivers provide for "free" is estimated to be $257 billion a year. That is twice as much as is actually spent on homecare and nursing home services.

Caregiving families tend to have lower incomes than non-caregiving families. Thirty-five percent of average American households have incomes of under $30,000. Among caregiving families the percentage is 43%.

Of the estimated 2.5 million Americans who need assistive technology such as wheelchairs, 61% can't afford it.

Out of pocket medical expenses for a family that has a disabled member who needs help with activities of daily living (eating, toileting, etc.) are more than 2.5% greater (11.2% of income compared to 4.1%) than for a family without a disabled member.

IMPACT OF CAREGIVING

Elderly spousal caregivers with a history of chronic illness themselves who are experiencing caregiving related stress have a 63% higher mortality rate than their non-caregiving peers.

The stress of family caregiving for person's with dementia has been shown to impact a person's immune system for up to three years after their caregiving ends thus increasing their chances of developing a chronic illness themselves.

Family caregivers who provide care 36 or more hours weekly are more likely than non-caregivers to experience symptoms of depression or anxiety. For spouses the rate is six times higher; for those caring for a parent the rate is twice as high.

Family caregivers providing high levels of care have a 51% incidence of sleeplessness and a 41% incidence of back pain.


CAREGIVING AND WORK

Forty two percent of parents of special needs children lack basic workplace supports, such as paid sick leave and vacation time.

Women average 11.5 years out of the paid labor force, primarily because of caregiving responsibilities; men average 1.3 years.

American businesses loses between $11 billion and $29 billion each year due to employees' need to care for loved ones 50 years of age and older.

Both male and female children of aging parents make changes at work in order to accommodate caregiving responsibilities. Both have modified their schedules (men 54%, women 56%). Both have come in late and/or leave early (men 78%, women 84%) and both have altered their work-related travel (men 38%, women 27%).

CAREGIVING AND HEALTH CARE

Over 40% of U.S. primary care physicians think they don't have enough time to spend with patients.

Family caregivers provide the overwhelming majority of homecare services in the U.S., approximately 80%.

In 2000, 50 percent of caregivers reported that different providers gave different diagnoses for the same set of symptoms and 62 percent reported that different providers gave other conflicting information. Another recent survey found that 44 percent of physicians believe that poor care coordination leads to unnecessary hospitalization, and 24 percent stated it can lead to otherwise unnecessary nursing home stays.

By the year 2030, nearly 150 million Americans will have some type of chronic illness, a 50% increase since 1995.

Family caregivers who acknowledge their role are more proactive in reaching out for resources and talking with their loved one's doctor than non-acknowledged caregivers.

Over 40 percent of family caregivers provide some type of 'nursing care' for their loved ones, such as giving medications, changing bandages, managing machinery and monitoring vital signs.

One-third of family caregivers who change dressings and manage machines, receive no instructions.

For sources and more info go to the National Family Caregiver Association site.

right to hope

Both the hospice programs that I have experienced have a few things in common. One is a "Hospice Patients Bill of Rights", which always seems to include a "right to hope". I don't know exactly what this is supposed to mean, but I do know that I'm getting sick of it and I hope that there is some good reason that it exists.

Anyway, I called the priest who was planning to visit my mom today. I wanted to let him know that I believe that my mom needs time to speak to him privately, and that privacy is not the easiest thing to negotiate with my grandma around. I feel so strongly about this that if I were in Ottumwa right now I would happily pick my grandma up and sling her over my shoulder and walk 50 miles through a subzero ice storm just to plop her down somewhere else. Anywhere else. Apparently my feelings came through on the phone because after I finished speaking there were about 60 seconds worth of silence where I sat there thinking "shit, I just went into all that and now he got disconnected and I have to do it all over again!" But Father John finally did speak (?!?) and said that he would do his best but that last time he was at the house he saw 8 people walk in and out. It might not be that easy. I told him that with brain cancer my mom's time for being conscious is limited, and that I am doing everything I can to help her find some peace while she is able to talk. He said that he knows this is true about brain cancer, and that he has seen changes in her thinking already. Then he said, "and I think she should be in the residential hospice". I was stunned because he is the first person involved in this story (besides Freda) who has been brave enough to say these words. The hospice staff are all about respecting the patient and what she wants, which I'm glad for. But what if what the patient says she wants is really for the sake of protecting her mother from reality? Or what if what the patient wants is not the best thing for herself and those around her?

After talking to the priest, I decided that I need to go back to Iowa this weekend. I can feel time running out, and I want to be around while my mom can talk to me and while I can listen.

This afternoon I had a voicemail from Freda. She had just talked to my grandma who told her that my mom had a seizure today and fell again last night. I immediately called my grandma's house and Joe answered. He got confused when I asked about the seizure. He tried to tell me he knew nothing about it? Then he put my mom on the phone and she sounded completely exhausted but annoyed. Apparently she had told Joe and Louise that she didn't want her kids to know about the seizure, and he'd been trying to follow her direction.

Oh, this web is so tangled and messy! My mom softened up when I told her I loved her, and then she started to cry. Then we hung up as the priest was on his way over for the previously planned visit.

lonely night

Everyone is in bed here. Everyone but me. Now I get to look around the house and see the day's damage done. Piles of laundry, folded and unfolded. Toys up to my ankles. Paperwork and assorted kid-stuff that needs to be filed or put away. Then there is the work I could be doing for my job.

About a half an hour ago I thought of a great way to avoid all these responsibilities; go watch TV with mom! But then I remembered. She's not downstairs in the cozy room she kept heated up like a blast furnace. She's not sitting up on the bed with the remote,flipping between Court TV and CNN. She's not on the phone with grandma or Freda or one of her many friends who liked to call and check in on her. She's not waiting for me to come down to watch Jon Stewart with her at 10 o'clock.

I talked to her tonight, and thinking about it makes me even more sad. She's having a hard time putting sentences together and remembering words. She's not in the same state that she was when she was here with me.

What am I supposed to do with myself now? So much to do, but I just feel like crying. I miss my night owl mom, who was my best companion.

What am I supposed to do without her?

I'm Back

Whirlwind trip to Iowa is over. This one is, at least. I know there are more to come.

Don't tell Tim, but I had the best night's sleep I've had in a year and a half. And not just one night, but two! But poor papa ended up spending Saturday night throwing up the flu, then taking care of 3 kids the next day! Luckily (and it is luck!), we have the best kids in the world. They are so great that they basically took care of themselves this weekend. At least that's what I heard from their dad.

Things in Ottumwa are changing. My mom looked different than she did last time I was there. Her face and upper body are retaining fluid, and her decadron has been reduced because of it. She is also not getting around so well, and did have a fall in the dining room last night. Of course it happened while my brother and I were gone, and while Joe and Louise were also out. She was okay, only some soreness in her ribs. She just keeps rolling with whatever comes at her, and we all watch in amazement.

She did tell me in a private (i.e. out of grandma's earshot) moment that she's thinking about going to hospice house, which is the residential hospice. She says she hasn't decided yet. I told her that I'm sure she will know when the time is right. This fit with my resolution to not be bossy or controlling during my visit. I'm glad to say that I did a good job keeping my mouth shut! It served us all well.

I also saw that my mom's real needs right now are spiritual and emotional, as she did a fair amount of crying on the rare occasions that she and I were alone. She is all brave for grandma, and it's not doing anyone any good, IMHO. But, again I kept my bossy daughter mouth closed. Instead I cried and let her cry and we both felt release.

I also asked her about who she wants to talk to about spiritual matters, and she named the priest at St. Pat's. So I called him and he is visiting her on Thursday. I also plan to call and speak to the hospice social worker tomorrow, and fill her in about my mom and grandma and what I see their needs being. Of course my biases will be clear, but the social worker will have to sort that out because I'm not objective here and I don't need to be.

I'm Off

I'm leaving for Iowa this afternoon, coming back Monday. Going solo.

Had planned to go last weekend but that didn't work out. My brother Mike is there right now also, until Tuesday.

Mom had broncoscopy yesterday to open up a pocket of fluid in lower left lobe of her lung. This is the same spot where cancer was thriving last summer, but she also has pneumonia that is not responding to antibiotics. She sounded pretty wiped out when I talked to her this a.m. Mike said she is having a harder time getting around.

I went to Bill's Imports and got fixings for gyros sandwiches, which mom said she would enjoy when we talked last week. No radio or such in the Honda, and the muffler is muffling less than it did last week, so wish me safety and sanity.

Sane Friend Freda

My mom has always had a knack for choosing intense people for friends.

Hmm, why does that strike me as familiar?!

Anyway, some of them have been real doozies, not always playing with a full deck. But a couple of them have been amazing; strong and loyal to her through thick and thin. That is how I describe my mom's friend Freda.

Freda and my mom met in the 70s when Freda's daughter and I became kindergarten friends. Both moms were energetic nurses, working 3-ll shifts and raising families. Our families didn't see much of one another after we moved away from Des Moines when I was 8. I do have a fond memory of traveling back to Des Moines for the pope visit in the late 70s, though. I recall that one of Freda's naughty daughters was reading the novel "Wifey" to me under a blanket at the papal event! Anyway, Freda and mom reconnected some time after my parents were divorced in '89, and they have been close ever since.

Freda has seen it all. She worked as a hospital nurse, then a head nurse and ended up retiring as a VP of patient services from a Des Moines hospital. She has survived the life and death of a spouse with alzheimers, and she is a 3 year survivor of cancer. She has 3 kids and 12 grandchildren, and she loves carting them around the countryside in her gigantic RV.

Freda is a true blue friend, with her feet firmly planted and her vision clear. So when Freda calls me these days and tells me her concerns about my mom and life in home hospice in Ottumwa, I always feel a little saner because I hear her say just what I've been thinking.

Freda worries that my mom is still in denial about dying. She worries that my mom is still doing so much bargaining. She tells me that soon after my mom arrived in Ottuwma in mid December, she called Freda and asked her if she could help her find a doctor who could cure her. Freda was straightforward and told her that if the doctors in Minnesota couldn't cure her then it's time to move on from seeking cure. One thing to count on from Freda is that she will tell the truth even if it's hard to hear. We both know my mom, though, and that she is still looking for a way out of dying.

Freda worries about my mom's relationship with my grandma, and how quickly my mom went back to her caregiver role. It is comfortable and it's what she knows, and it makes my grandma happy. But Freda worries that my mom is not able to work through her own feelings about what she is experiencing because she is so focused on grandma. Freda worries that grandma is also so focused on herself that she won't realize that she needs to let go of my mom. She won't let go and allow her child to move into the next phase of her journey.

When Freda called me this week and we talked about these things and about the pneumonia my mom is now being treated for by the home hospice team, we agreed on a few other things:

a)we don't know what it is like to be in the shoes of this dying woman,
b) we don't get to understand her relationship with her mother,
c)she is going to do this cancer-thing whatever way she damn well pleases!

And we have no choice but to keep watching from afar, hoping and praying for the best.

Litany of Saints

Our friends Rebecca and Paul got a difficult phone call Sunday morning. It was one of Paul's 12 siblings saying that their dad was receiving last rites at the hospital. He had been in the hospital for 3 weeks with heart and lung problems that had put him on a ventilator.

Rebecca described for me the moments before Paul's dad passed. Amazingly, all 13 children were present for this precious time. The priest from the church that Paul's parents attend was there, and he and other family members were singing together quietly. Then the priest began to sing the Litany of the Saints. It is a beautiful prayer sung to the individual saints by name, asking for their prayers. It is sung every year at the Easter Vigil service at the Basilica, and every year I cry for the absolute beauty of it. So when Rebecca told me that it was sung to her father-in-law by all of his loved ones at the time of his moving on from this world, my heart welled up. What a beautiful gift to give to an old Catholic who was known to get out of bed at 4 a.m. to go to church and adore the Eucharist! I am amazed at his children, whose faith lives span from born-again to agnostic, and how they pulled together and provided their father with this gentle and beautiful act of love. If a death can be perfect, it sounds like Wence's was.

Thank you Paul and Rebecca, for letting me share this story.

angel play

We have not directly discussed my mom's dying with our kids. We are waiting for them to ask about it, and they have not.

Nonetheless, about a week after Christmas I heard Maggie in the living room making crying sounds. When she does this I have to cock my head and listen carefully to tell whether it is real crying or fake crying. In this case it was fake crying, so I peeked around the corner to see what was going on. I saw that she was playing with three small figures on the couch. Two of the figures were angels from different nativity scenes, and one was a tiny fairy that came with her Fairy Barbie.

The largest angel was the grandma, the smaller angel was the mom and the tiny fairy was the girl. The mom and girl were crying and crying because grandma had died and they were so sad! Their crying seemed endless and they had no words for their grief. After about 7 minutes of this, the girl-fairy suddenly got an idea. "Hey!", she said to her mom, "let's bring grandma back to life!". The mom-angel agreed that this was a great idea, and Frankie got distracted from his train set and asked if he could play too. So together the mom-angel, the girl-fairy and Thomas the Tank Engine's AAA battery all made contact with the grandma-angel's body. Her resurrection was swift, and there was much celebrating afterward. And then they got try out their new craft on all the toy creatures in their toybins.

closet cleaning

I'm cleaning out the closet in our computer room so that we can start using the space better. I'm also clearing stuff out with an eye toward getting the house ready to show to prospective buyers. Perhaps this spring or summer, if the stars are aligned in our favor?

Anyway, I'm finding clues to some ways I've spent my time over the past 10 years. I hate seeing how time is zipping past me at the speed of light! It's scary. I'm also sad to see clues to interests and activites of mine that have fallen by the wayside.

First I found a plastic bag with two good dictionaries in it. Francesca gave/loaned? them to me when I helped her do some proofreading a few years ago? It was a children's book about estuaries, if I remember correctly. One dictionary has "Property of Geography Dept. Lerner Publications" written in it. Whoops!

Then there is a nice fabric zipper bag with an AFL-CIO 50th Anniversary 1945-1995 insignia stamped on it. It is full of information about how to do effective organizing, and labor law related to this. It if from a conference I went to in Madison in the mid 90s when I was a volunteer organizer for OPEIU.

Next I found a bag with "are you lost in the Medicare maze?" printed on it, then the phone number for Senior LinkAGE Line in Minnesota. Sometime after Maggie was born and I was adjusting to not going to a job every day, I saw a notice in the Star Tribune about a need for volunteers to help seniors with medicare issues. Since I had spent way too much time figuring out complicated insurance crap at my job at HP, I thought the volunteer work would be a good match to my skills. It was, I enjoyed it and I miss it. I gave it up some time after Frank was born because I just didn't have time or energy to do it well.

Then there is my clarinet that I've had since 6th grade. If I open the case and breathe in that woodwind smell I'm immediately transported back to Mt. Vernon Middle School band room. Glad I'm not there, but wish I could remember how to play this thing.

Then there is my old black leather bag I used to take to work every day when I was a 9-5 gal. I must have used it recently for something, because there is a bag of baby wipes in it. And a newsletter from the Oblates of St. Benedict at St. John's Abbey in Collegeville. I took the newsletter from Barb's place recently since she doesn't read it. She is a benedictine oblate, and I hope that I will be one some day too. But no time soon of course, for obvious reasons!

ferber, ferberize, ferberization

I've noticed that several times a week someone is arriving at this blog by googling one of the above words. Poor souls! I understand the desperation you feel, so here I am to tell you the rest of our ferberization story.

About a month ago I was bragging about how we had "succeeded" at ferberizing our 7 month old. After a couple rough nights of letting her cry, she was sleeping in her crib for most of the night until about 5 a.m. when she would cry and Tim would get her and bring her into our bed. But then she got croup and then another cold, and the whole "sleeping in the crib" plan was completely shot to hell.

Finally two nights ago I said enough! I put her to bed after nursing her, and she woke up (as usual) about an hour and a half later and started crying. I was still awake and Tim was in bed. I went in our bedroom and told him that I wanted to let her cry instead of getting her up again. He agreed, but only for the first 5 minutes until her cry turned into something blood-curdling. I had to sit on him to keep him from rescuing her, good papa that he is! Finally I went in and talked to her and rubbed her head without picking her up from the crib. It was SO hard not to pick her up because I knew the screaming would stop immediately if I did, but instead I caressed her face and head and helped her get calmed down. Several times she almost fell asleep while I stood over her crib with my hand on her, but this kid is a fighter! As soon as her eyelids got heavy she would JERK! her little legs to keep herself awake. Finally I just covered her up and said "night night!" and left the room. Was she ever furious about that!

We spent the first half of the night listening to her scream, then calm down, then start screaming again. Tim went in once to comfort her without picking her up, and again she was really mad when he left. But about half way through the night, she got tired enough that she just fell asleep. She woke up maybe two more times and tried to get worked up again, but didn't get very far because she was so tired.

The second night (last night) was a completely different story. I put her to bed after nursing her, and she woke up an hour later and cried for 30 seconds. This happened another 2 times, and the last I heard she was chatting and blowing raspberries about 5 a.m. before falling asleep again. The kid took a crash course in self-comfort and is passing with flying colors!

So my advice to anyone who gets here via a search engine is that you obviously aren't a "family bed" type parent or you wouldn't be googling Ferber! If you feel like you it's time to get back to sleeping a full night in the position of your choice instead of twisted up like a pretzel with a little body attached to you, maybe it is time to take the leap. If we could do it, you can too and it will probably be less painful than you think. Good luck!

oxfam

I know that none of us think we have money, but let's do this anyway:

oxfam earthquake relief

Grandma Candy

I'm having a hard time with my grandma right now, my grandma who is my mom's mom. Instead of dragging out the details of her crazy relationship with my mom and how protective I feel of my mom because of it, I need to recall that we've had brighter times and that our relationships are broader than our current situation. I need to concentrate on what I've loved about my grandma in my nearly 4 decades of knowing her. I need to call up what I miss about her, because we are very disconnected right now. I need to remember the qualities I've cherished about her so I can look back and draw on this warmth and love in the challenging weeks to come.

Here are some of my best memories of my grandma:

Grandma loved me when I was a baby. I was her first grandchild, and she took care of me while my mom worked days at the county hospital. There are pictures of her holding me during my first year, and you can see that she is smitten. When I was an older child I always felt like I was special to her, maybe even her favorite. I'm sure this was because of our time together when I was just an infant.

When we were small, my brother and I loved going to grandma Canny's house. Sometimes we called her "grandma Candy". Any kid who visited her was invited to dive into the bowls of sweets she had placed around her home. She was round and quiet, slow-moving and soft. Her eyes were the color of dark chocolate, and they sparkled with light when she laughed. Not a lot of people got to see her laugh, but we did.

Grandma wore a flowery apron when she cooked pork chops or cleaned house or did the washing. She used an old washing machine that had a wringer attached, and she showed us how to put the clothes through without getting our fingers caught. Doing wash with her was fun and exciting, and on summer Mondays we got to help hang the laundry out in the sunshine.

Grandma's backyard was an amazing place. It had the brightest sun and the most colorful flowers and the messiest mudpies we'd ever seen. It was never lonely in her yard because she was always with us, planting or weeding or swaying on the pink porch swing. She let us pick her flowers and pull up her big leafed plants to pretend they were umbrellas.

Once we found a nest in her yard, and inside it was a baby bird. It had fallen out of a tree, and its mama was nowhere to be found. Grandma let us take the nest up to the back porch, and showed us how to feed the bird sugar water with an eye dropper. She kept vigil with us over the fledgling until an evening shower drove us inside. She comforted us when we found the baby in its water-filled nest the next morning.

My grandma had a wild imagination that she shared with few people. Outside of my brother and I, I don't know how many got to experience it. She told stories about cities under the sea and creatures from other galaxies. She spun ghost stories that made our hair stand on end. It was especially fun to hear these tales while we sat on the back porch with her and our grandpa, looking up at the stars. We spent many hours at this, every night during our summer visits.

The best part about being at my grandma's house was how time stood still as soon as we walked through the door. There was nothing to rush for, nothing to hurry about, just a cocoon of space and time for playing and laughing and feeling loved in.
And in this cocoon was grandma, who was present and accounted for in a way that no other adult was. She spent hours at the kitchen table playing bingo or poring over old family photos and telling us stories about life before we were born. I know now that when I am doing my best parenting and being most present with children, it is because of these times spent basking in the love of my grandma Canny.

Let the Mystery Be

This song is stuck in my head because I love it. Tim got me the CD for Christmas. He has a way to play it on his weblog.