I wish my dad had cancer.

I know, right?? What a horrible, horrible thing to say.

The whole time Cliff was fighting cancer, all the doctors visits and worrying and surgeries and medications, I thought over and over and over again that I would never, not in a million years, wish that on anyone. Even my worst enemies. It’s not a statement I make lightly.

But I really wish my dad had cancer. Instead, he has Alzheimers.

Cancer is a fightable disease. Doctors will pat you on the back, give you odds, tell you with confidence (even if it’s feigned) “We are going to throw everything we have at this and you can beat it!” With Alzheimers, it’s all about “slowing things down” and discussion about “the progression”, but there’s no fighting spirit or positive attitude called for. Because it doesn’t matter. You can’t beat it. It wins the battle before you even have a chance to marshall the troops.

Cancer comes with a two part diagnoses: The Bummer : “The test results are back, and it’s cancer.” and The Hope: “…….here’s our plan of attack“. Alzheimers diagnoses are different. They are more of the “It sucks and I know it sucks and unfortunately you’d probably better become accustomed to it sucking, because soon it will suck even worse.” variety.

Cancer is long periods of nothing punctuated by shorter periods of intense need. People respond pretty well to that. People can organize meal delivery, they can drop off a casserole, they can mow your lawn while someone recovers from surgery. Alzheimers never stops. It never takes a break. It just gets worse.

Of all the things to befall my father in particular, Alzheimers has a specific sort of cruelty. I have never known a man more cerebral than my father, a man who lived inside his head more. Of all the words anyone ever used to describe my dad, I imagine “capable” probably took top prize. But he’s not capable anymore.

He was diagnosed right after my son was born. At the time, his symptoms were mostly of the Party Foul variety. The same story, told over and over, forgetting to meet his daughters at the movies, losing things. It stayed that way for a long time. I actually began to doubt the timelines we’d been given. Yeah, dad was forgetful. Sure, you had to check the stove burners before he left the house, make sure he had his phone, call him both the night before you met him for lunch and again a half hour before you were going to pick him up. He’d get irrationally and disproportionately angry all of a sudden, but not often. But it was manageable. In the past year, though, the disease has picked up some speed, and it’s hard to keep up, like dribbling a soccer ball down a hill. You have control for a second, and then you lose it, careening down the hill far too fast, unable to steer, hoping you catch up.

I miss my dad. My kids won’t know him like I do, or even like my nieces do, or even like they do. Drew and Zachary have totally different grandfathers in many ways.

We took my dad to see Van Morrison in concert last week. Van is one of his favorites, and I felt particularly lucky that he was in town and playing now, while we could go and enjoy it. I asked my parents if I could take their picture. Dad was goofing off, making faces, and I chided him a little bit, and he laughed just as I snapped the picture. I love this picture. It’s my ‘real’ dad.

Go cocks. I guess.

And probably also why daycare is going to call me at work tomorrow.

They have been working on rhyming with the 4 year olds. Honestly, I am so damn tired of rhyming. We rhyme in the car, we rhyme at bathtime, we rhyme in our house and with a mouse and in the dark at the park.

So I picked Drew up at school today, and I am just bone tired. I have been sick, the baby isn’t sleeping, blahblahblah, adult concerns and worries, blahblahblah. But we WILL rhyme!!! There WILL be learning!!

My mind was about 10% on the rhyming. That 10% was 50% there. The other 90% was 100% figuring out mundane stuff like dinner and clean socks and excel macros and training documents and how much milk was in the house. (If that math confuses you, you are not a working mom.)
So the rhyming went a little something like this — the enthusiasm, of course, belongs to Drew.
BOX!! fox

HOUSE!!! mouse

CAR!!!! star

NOSE!!! hose

DOG!!! log

HAT!!!! cat

SOCK!!!!

:|



You know what I said.

Uhh, yeah. I know.

But, sir, let me explain the CONTEXT........

I have been talking to Drew about food and choices and eating more things that are good for our bodies. I have told him that I love him, and I’d like his body to be happy and healthy and feel good, etc, etc. I may have overdone it a bit, because we were shopping at the grocery store today and he was loudly commenting “I really like your body, mama. I like it when you eat things that are good for your body, because it makes my body happy and we both feel so good!”


I am expecting a call from the State any day now.

Sleeping Beauties

I am just going to say it — I love sleeping with my kids. I know in a lot of circles that is something people freak out about – it seems like you either are a cosleeper, or you aren’t.

Zachary goes down to sleep alone, but Drew still wants me to lay (lie?) down with me each night. By “wants” I mean “refuses to go to bed alone”. But I am actually ok with that. Especially since Zak was born, I really relish the half hour or so we snuggle (or “smuggle” in Drew parlance) before he falls alseep. We talk about his day, we read a book or three, he tells me about his dreams or tells me a story. Then he rolls over, places my arm around him and commands me to smuggle him, and drops off to sleep. And of course, so do I, since I cannot be still for more than 10 minutes without sleeping. I wake a couple of hours later in excruciating back pain, usually just in time to hear Zak crying for me. I grab him and we retire to the recliner, where he nurses the rest of the night. About half the time, Drew joins us in the wee hours, and then it’s the three of us, crammed into a recliner built for one, a mass of tangled limbs and boppys and blankets.

I wake up in the morning with a hand or a foot or baby milky morning breath in my face, loose and warm sturdy baby boy bodies wrapped around me, and I feel content.

I often wonder if I would feel the same if I was a stay at home mom. I know that even I sometimes feel a need to get away from all the touching that is a part of being a mom to little ones, and I am sure it’s worse for moms at home with their kids all day, who have 24 hours of tugging and pulling on clothes. For me, though, I am away from them for 9 or 10 hours a day, so it’s hard for me to begrudge them sitting on my lap at dinner, crawling all over me on the floor as we play, or being unable to sleep without the dulcet tones of Mommy snoring in their ears. :P

Even on the days it feels claustrophobic – when I have a cold and can’t breathe and am fairly certain I will suffocate with Drew’s massive noggin all up in my face, or when Zak has been literally attached to me All. Night. Long. in some sort of nursing marathon — I try and appreciate that this time is so short lived. They will want me so much less as they get older, my sweet round faced little men, and by the time they are young teenagers and I am dropping them off blocks away from their intended destinations so they won’t be seen with me, I will look back and remember that there was a time that all they wanted was to be close to me, and I will never be sorry I indulged them. Or myself.

Underappreciated

Scene: Minivan pulls up to daycare. Mom unloads a preschooler and a baby. Preschooler looks at storm drainage ravine.
KID: Mommy, when it rains, that fills with water like a river.
MOM: Yup.
KID: If I fell in, I would float away!
MOM: Yup. That’s why we stay away from the edge, right?
KID: Yes, Mama, I be careful. <approaches mother, grabs her leg in a vice grip> If I fell in and floated away, I’d be lonely and just so sad all the time.
MOM: <touched that her child is so sweet and loves her so much> Oh, sweetie, I’d be sad, too! So let’s be careful!
KID: I’d cry a lot. I’d just miss Grandma so much!!!
MOM:

Magic time machine

Like many people in this age of cell phones, I don’t wear a watch. 

So I was more than a little taken aback a few nights ago when I announced to Drew it was time for bed and he held his finger up to me – wait a minute, mom – and looked at his (bare) wrist and said “Nope! My watch says it’s time for one more show!”

Since then, this magical watch has informed Drew that it is also not time for a bath, poop goes in pull ups and not the potty, and dinner should be chocolate and not ravioli. So, well, ok, the watch may have been ok on that last one.

This is the sort of thing no parenting book can preare you for. There are chapters on hitting and biting, on nutrition and discipline, but no one can tell you how to counter the imaginary watch that is your childs id come to life.

So first I had my own watch.

“Well, Mommy’s watch says you have to eat grapes and not puzzle pieces for a snack.”
How did that go over? Not so great. Apparently I didn’t sell it enough, because he pointed out, quite reasonably, that I was not wearing a watch.

Taking a page from his book, when the Watch told him that it was time to go to the playground despite the cold rain, I mentioned to him that I didn’t see a watch. That was met with the Look. The look that says You stupid, stupid grown up. You think you know so much, but you are really clueless. and “Mommy. My watch is a KID watch. You can’t see it.”

Umm, ok.

So now we are just going with “yeah, I know your watch says you need a different sippy cup, but until your watch can get you one, seems like you are out of luck.” I am not getting ahead with this approach, but I am at least holding ground.

Secretly, I love the watch. And I love the kids imagination. But don’t tell him that. I don’t want to go to the playground today. It’s like 40 degrees!

memories

Isn’t it funny how the most commonplace things can suddenly take you back to another place or time? The weather here has been cool, and after a summer of the house hermetically sealed in air conditioned comfort, it has been nice to open all the windows and let the fresh air in. We have all the windows open, and today as I was leaving the guest room, the little gust of air from the window made the door sound a certain hollow way as I closed it, and I was suddenly transported back in time to my father’s mother’s house. The door just shut the exact same way. Weird. I felt like a little kid. My grandmothers house was just a place of love. Noschool, only the books we wanted to read, those little boxes of cereal for breakfast with raisin toast and, honestly, whatever else you wanted Grandmother (never GrandMA!) to make for you. Aunts and uncles in and out of the house, the obligitory single afternoon at “Other Grandma’s” house (after which we were relieved to return to her house!), and little bowls of Hershey kisses everywhere. My whole family seemed happier. Now that I have my own inlaws and have a more adult perspective of the relationship my mother had with my fathers parents, I am sure that the adult visits were somewhat less carefree than mine, but they did a great job of hiding all of that from us kids.

I miss my grandmother. She would have loved to see her great grandkids, and I am so, so sorry that she never got to. My son is named after her husband and my dad. I remember being enveloped in hugs of Estee Lauder perfume, her always bright red fingernails (a lady always has her nails done!) and her smile. Many times I’d catch her watching us play, with a fantastic smile on her face – she was always just so happy, as she said, to have her house noisy again.

So I cherish the moments when I flash back to something that reminds me of her, that might make me feel like she’s still here. I feel a tug of pain, but then a relief that I can still feel that way – something more than just a 2 dimensional memory.