The Small Family   

This was actually a rather sad, unusual week for us: Grandma Ruth passed away in her sleep on Thursday morning. It’s a very strange feeling to on one hand feel bad that someone you care for has passed away, but on the other hand feel enormously relieved that your loved one is no longer living unhappily and/or in discomfort. Grandma was 94, and thus her death doesn’t come as a huge surprise—but it is still a little shocking when it happens. She hadn’t been feeling super the last few days, but who does at age 94? She’s had a lot of ups and downs, and we figured this was just another down that she was pulling out of. Instead, she passed away quietly in her sleep, the way everyone would love to go when it’s their time. No suffering...just peace. And for that, we are all grateful.

My Grandma deserves an entire blog post of her own, and I wrote one on Friday. So, if you want to read a few of my memories of her, at the bottom of this week’s blog post, you’ll see an entire post dedicated to Grandma Ruth. And may she rest in peace!

But along with the sad news, we also have happy news from this week. Theo has turned into an absolute chatterbox lately, which is so much fun! On Monday, we went to visit Auntie Lynnie, who is recuperating from surgery (and doing very well, thank goodness!). In between trying to get into everything at Auntie Lynnie’s house, Theo was wandering around the family room babbling. At one point, Grandma Diane opened his favorite Neighborhood Animals book to read it to him. Now, Theo has certain pages of this book that he loves—the doggie, the kitty, the birdie, and the ducky, to be exact. He pretty well ignores the mouse and the ladybug. But as Grandma Diane was going through the pages, he exclaimed “Ladybug!” when she got to the ladybug page. Go figure—he always skips that page when I try to show it to him.

Later that day, I walked out to the mailbox with Theo, and he said, “Water!” I said, “Did you say ‘water’?” and he pointed to the sprinklers that were running and said, “Water!” again. So neat!

On Wednesday, as I was dressing him in his swim trunks for his float lesson, I said, “Guess who’s coming to visit you this weekend? Grandpa Tom and Grandma Kathy!” and he said, “Papa!” (Grandpa Tom refers to himself as “Pop-pop” to the boys, as in “Pop-pop misses you!” or “Pop-pop is going to come visit you!”, so I think that’s how Theo knew to say “Papa!” when I mentioned Grandpa Tom.) And then he wandered around his room whispering, “Papa, papa!” And indeed, when they came to visit us on Saturday, Theo said “Papa” several more times.

Speaking of float lessons, they are going very well. As Miss Deborah explains it, Theo has all the basics down and just has to put them together. He’s now tipping his head back into float position when we tell him, “Look up and float on your back!” And he’s doing better every day with rolling from his tummy onto his back. And Miss Deborah is starting to work with “taking him off the wall,” which is essentially a simulated, controlled fall off the wall so the baby has the sensation of entering the water by falling in and can associated rolling onto his back with the entry into the water that way. Grandma Diane got to come to float lessons on Monday, which was fun, and Chris got to take Theo on Thursday (because I met my Mom at the nursing home to say goodbye to Grandma Ruth and clear out her things). Chris was amazed at how much progress Theo has made in the past week, and Miss Deborah said even his Wednesday-to-Thursday progress was significant. I can’t wait to see on Monday!

Thursday evening, we went to a party at our friend Tina’s house, as planned. It had been a long, stressful day, as you can well imagine, but a potluck with friends seemed like a good way to relax after all the stress. And indeed we had a really good time. Theo “played” (I use the term loosely, since he’s still too young to really play with other kids much) with a couple of almost-three-year-olds—Belen and Nora. That is, he played with them in between making mad dashes for Tina and Nate’s pool. Chris and I watched him like a hawk, and he dashed for the pool every chance he got. Every time he was in sight of it, he made a beeline for it. He even got one leg in at one point. The kid has no fear of water. Which is good...except that it makes his mama and daddy very, very nervous in terms of water safety until he is a strong swimmer (which obviously won’t be for a few years yet). I did take him in the pool for a bit, which he enjoyed.

Theo has also adapted well to his big-boy tennis shoes. He’s still not walking flawlessly in them—he kind of stumbles around like the town drunk! But he doesn’t seem bothered by them, and he’s taking it all in stride. (Ha ha...like the “stride” joke?! Get it? Shoes? Stride! Ha!!) I’ve had a few friends say the transition from soft shoes to hard-soled shoes can take a bit of time, so I’m glad to see that it seems to be happening smoothly.

What is not going so smoothly is the Great Yogurt Experiment. We thought it was going well, but Theo has spit up several times since we started yogurt. And although he used to be the King of Spitup, he hasn’t done it in months...until we started yogurt. It’s not every day, but it’s been several times...and in fact three times on Saturday morning, following a rather disturbing diaper. Sigh...and I was so optimistic. Well, we’re going to try lactose-free milk and see if that works. We don’t know whether Theo’s problems with dairy are an allergy (like Chris has and I had) or a lactose intolerance, so now we’ll try the lactose angle and see how that goes. Poor kid...I hate having to make him a guinea pig, but there’s just no other way to figure out what sort of “dairy” products he can have without some trial and error. In the meantime, beware of flying spitup...

Saturday was a good day despite spitup and scary diapers. Grandma Kathy and Grandpa Tom came up for a visit, and we had a good time seeing them. We mostly just hung out at the house and chatted, though we did take them to our favorite consignment store, which Grandma Kathy has been wanting to see for some time. Afterwards, Tom, Kathy, and Chris all worked at making dinner while I let them wait on me. Ha ha—kidding! I corralled Theo while they made dinner. Steak, corn on the cob, salad, and cous cous, with chocolate cheesecake for dessert. What a treat! (The chocolate cheesecake was in honor of Grandpa Tom’s upcoming birthday, which is on Tuesday.)

Sunday, Theo and I gave Chris an afternoon to himself. We visited Grandma Diane and then met Auntie Jeanette at the mall. Chris stayed home and did some stuff around the house, did a bit of reading, etc. Hopefully he enjoyed the quiet time!

Both Chris and I are working a lot in August, but then we’re gearing up for our trip in September. My Mom has decided to hold my Grandma’s memorial service in Buffalo on the first weekend in September, so she’ll be flying out to Buffalo with us when we go on September 2^nd. (Lucky her—I was able to book her the window seat in front of Theo’s...so if he kicks anyone, it’ll be his Grandma. Poor woman! I’ll be nice and trade with her if he’s a seat-kicking turkey.) She’ll be flying back on Sunday, Sept 6^th, the day we leave Buffalo to drive to Philly. So although that obviously is a sad part of our trip (the memorial service), I’m glad that we’ll be able to go to it.