Stargazer

(Un)broken routines

My new schedule starts early, usually not too long after I hear Baby get up. (yes, I could stay in bed, but why would I?) This morning that was about 6 a.m. The three of us usually tag team it so each one of us can do our morning rituals like breakfast and coffee.

Son-in-law makes do with my ancient blender for his morning smoothie; it was a wedding gift in 1984!

Older Daughter is still finding some of her cherished outfits, like her "prawnts." She wore them in Senegal when she lived there for a year, and the rest of us made not-so-gentle mockery of them. Pants with prawns all over them??  She loves them, but they are a teeny bit too small for her, and an important seam has busted out. I am not sorry. ;)

Our days also revolve around this furry guy who leaves his hair everywhere, but is charming and friendly. When we made a cushion tunnel for Baby, Ziggy decided that it was actually his cat condo! 

Last night we had my mother up for dinner; Ashley prepared her own delicious version of a "Salade Niçoise." We all oohed and ahhed over the baby who was in a good mood and delightful, even though he had previously raised hell the roof over taking an afternoon nap. Then today we walked/strolled down to mom's house for lunch. At 89 it's getting a bit too much for her, so we try to help out as much as we can OR as much as she'll allow. She showed us some of Dad's shirts that she's going to be getting rid of, and that made me very, very emotional. Isn't it strange what activates grief? Something about his shirts was incredibly poignant and even now I'm close to tears. I miss him so much. They're the shirts that he'll never wear again, in the room where he won't watch TV or read any more, in the house that, when I visit, will be forever empty of his wonderful presence. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. (she says)

 

A zoo

Does my title refer to my house (more chaotic than I'm used to) or an actual zoo? Can it be both? :) Have I mentioned that Younger Daughter will be coming to visit for a week or two at the end of July-early August? Will that be before or after they move to Chicago from Cincinnati? (not sure) Also Son-in-law's parents may also be coming from Iowa to see Grandson and will need a place to stay. Perhaps my mother's? The complexity of this is a little mind boggling for a retired lady who has been enjoying a boring quiet and structured life. I rarely run my dishwasher and do an occasional load of laundry. Now my appliances are getting the workout of their old lives! It will be an extremely busy and interesting couple of months, yet full of love, laughter and possibly a few testy moments. We'll make it work, right? I'm not ashamed to admit that it can be difficult to be out of my regular routine. John is going through the same experience with many family events as well as his Texas daughter and family coming to stay with him for three weeks. We're both planning to embrace these special family times, but the day to day craziness will sometimes be overwhelming for us. We're just not used to it, and that's OK. I'm not sure if John misses me; I could certainly use some of his humor and bear hugs right now though!

Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium is a small place with gorgeous views. We bought the tickets ahead of time for a specific slot and ended up spending a perfect hour viewing some of the animals. Grandson seemed overwhelmed by some of it! He enjoyed the fish and jellyfish the most. The weather cooperated well, unlike today. (59 degrees and raining)

I love the way these rays move, like birds. I wouldn't want to run into one in the wild, but they are beautiful to watch. 

Doesn't the sheep fish look like a cartoon animal?

Otters are so adorable. 

We got to see a little bit of the polar bear. Grandson was unimpressed.

It was feeding time for the red wolves, so they were very active. They are majestic animals.

Ashley found a bunch of travel mugs(mostly gifts) that I'll never use, and helped me decide to get rid of them. Whereas John puts everything on Offer Up and tries to get money for his items, I use the Buy Nothing for my area. That way I can have the people pick up what they want on my front porch, for free. The three women who took various mugs were very grateful and will use and enjoy drinking their coffee/tea out of them. And I have much more space in one of my kitchen cupboards! 

June has been an exhausting but wonderful month so far. I can see it in my face. 

 

Retro

Having a baby in the house is like stepping back in time, although when my girls were young, we lived in a rambler. So, there are stairs to deal with, lots of outlets, and a very determined young man who loves to play with everything. Pillows on the couch--no, they need to be thrown off.:) Magnets stuck to the refrigerator--an excellent toy! I have many, many walls to navigate, and Grandson is in love with all my lights. Big light (entry way chandelier), dimmer (dining room fixture with dimmer switch) and the other lamps that can be activated by Alexa. I'd forgotten how much entertaining and watching a baby requires; it's been good for my step count in spite of my lack of walking or running. Having Ashley back also means delicious dinners like last night's buffalo cauliflower. However, lack of serious exercise plus a change to my diet=oh, oh!

Hugs from this guy are priceless!

Ashley found this old photo of the two girls at one of the Oregon beaches; I blame my gymnast younger daughter for my high blood pressure. She was such a daredevil!

Speaking of retro, Son-in-law discovered our ancient Nintendo 64, and hooked it up. He then played a couple games of James Bond.

The old school graphics captured my attention for a while, but I'm not a gamer, thus I quickly lost interest. Plus, bedtime is extremely early these days. 

Which one should he play next? I vote for Rugrats in Paris!

Ashley is making Grandson a doll, which I didn't realize that people still did. She's a woman of many talents. 

Ziggy, with his long hair and massive tufts of fur, is reminding me what it's like to have a fluffy cat. They are gorgeous, but messy! Today we're off to the zoo in iffy weather, carting a possibly cranky one year old. We're hoping for the best, but taking an umbrella. It's what one does in Washington during Juneuary.  

 

Walking Dead

Although I've never watched a show about zombies(I hate them!), I'm certainly feeling like one today after we all suffered a rough night with Baby. There was not much sleep and a whole lot of scary screaming. An ear infection? Just an anomaly? This afternoon Grandson seems fine, but we adults are struggling and looking a lot like that zombie program on the television. Son-in-law got up at 5 a.m. as usual for work, on four hours sleep. Ashley is in the midst of her third and final interview for a policy job away from academia; the panel of eight people would be extremely intimidating to me and certainly is to her. It's difficult to know what to hope for. I'd like her to be happy, and would also love them closer. However, security(and medical insurance) are important to me; this is, like her university post-doc, a one year position. Sigh. 

Ziggy doesn't always understand the purpose of his scratching post. :)

While mowing my lawn to try to stay awake, I noticed (again) how overgrown my dogwood is. Hmmm. 

Not being a tea drinker, I had no clue what this object was; Ashley kindly explained it to me. Sadly, it's looking like I won't see much of John for a while, but I did schedule a hair appointment and a coffee date. Ashley and I are going to the zoo Thursday while Son-in-law takes his final test for one of his programming degree classes. Baby is starting to give me open mouth kisses, and unless he's having a melt down from 11-3 a.m., is a very cheerful child. Now to find out about the interview. Update: not great. :(

 

 

Savoring

It's difficult to express how special(but exhausting) it is to have a one year old around. He's a bundle of energy, and I'm definitely not. But he's also a smiley and cuddly guy who is fascinated with the world and how things (like “smart” lights!) work. He doesn't seem to need toys because everything is amazing to him, including my refrigerator magnets. :) Incidentally, I now have $300 worth of groceries at my house and my refrigerator and freezer are fuller than they have ever been. It's the difference between four people in the house, and not just me. Tonight Ashley invited my mom up to share a delicious enchilada meal she made; it was priceless to watch my mother playing peekaboo with Grandson, and adorable to hear him shriek with giggles. Things that are kind of hard at the moment: not having the time to mow or weed, feeling like I'm ignoring my friends, not knowing when I can schedule coffee dates, not exercising regularly, and not seeing John, who is dealing with a summer full of family visits and obligations. I'll figure out the logistics on these things, and life will settle more comfortably into this new routine, right? I'm also hoping that my summer will eventually include a few of my normal activities, like spending time with John. 

I looked out this afternoon and my Korean dogwood was blooming! I had it trimmed a few years ago, and since then it hasn't had many flowers on it. Unfortunately, it's horribly out of shape again, but I'm hesitant to do anything to it. It may have to remain shaggy.

No matter how awful this dianthus looks in the winter(as in dead), it comes back beautifully in May. Hurray for resilience! 

Here is my stroller selfie with Grandson this morning. How many different ways can I say, "Look at the big trees!" New York does have many trees, but nothing like what we have here in the Evergreen State. :)

 

Enjoying

Although I'm not used to getting up between 5-6 a.m. nor having so much to do with a one year old, I'm finding a lot of joy: in his beaming smiles, in the fact that I appear to need less sleep as an "old person" than I did as a 30 year old mom, and that it really doesn't matter if I brush my hair or wash my face every day. :) It's different to live with three people than it is to have my comfortable and easy routines, but I'm excited for the changes and challenges. My daughter and son-in-law cook and clean and pick up after themselves; as an example, when the dishes in the dishwasher are clean, they magically get unloaded. Also my son-in-law is a wizard at loading everything in there with military precision. (I am not) So, who needs 8 hours of sleep anyway?

When the inside of the house is chaotic, and it's nearly 90 degrees, you take the Little Guy outside to his new baby sized pool! Grandson loves the water and splashing, which certainly felt good to us adults too. During our water recreation, my mom showed up; she has found an excuse to come up to visit every day since Grandson has been here. This time it was that she had a couple of avocados that would go bad. The other day she bought my daughter some of her favorite Rainier cherries. I keep telling Mom, "You live three minutes away. Come up anytime!" It's touching that she believes her great-grandson to be the most beautiful, intelligent and personable baby in the world! (very true, in my opinion)

We missed taping Grandson's face plant out of the pool, but captured his sweet wrinkly toes. His mother hated and fussed whenever her toes were wrinkly from a bath. I had to be very quick at washing her or there would be a lot of screaming! She gave me permission to say that! ;)

This big guy is finding comfortable spots all over the house except in my bedroom, which is off-limits. It's my sanctuary. Even Mari isn't allowed in there. Nor are most people. 

This is as good as Old Copper is going to get this year; it's already losing its blooms before some of the buds have even opened. It's why I have only one rhododendron! They are so transitory. In other family news, my brother texted me to let me know that he would love to see Grandson, but is unvaccinated and doesn't want to make my daughter uncomfortable. My sister-in-law is very aggressively anti-Covid vaccine; I was hoping my brother wasn't--or that his work would require him to get the shots. I'm disappointed and discouraged about his refusal because it tells me a lot about him that I didn't want to know. I feel like his politics and his subservience to his wife (who is a real "piece of work") will drive a wedge between us, if it hasn't already. Unfortunately, although my state's Covid numbers look like they're falling, it's being driven by those of us who are smart vaccinated; the cases and hospitalizations among the unvaccinated are as high as they were at the virus' peak. And understandably(but sadly), my daughter and son-in-law don't want unvaccinated people around their unvaccinated baby. So, perhaps this post title should have been, "Margaret in the Middle?" Sigh. 

 

Adapting

Having a terrified cat hiding in my house (after a 6 hour plane ride in the hold of a 737) has been worrisome. Ziggy is finally coming out from behind my entertainment center, eating and using his litter box. Whew. I worried most about Grandson adjusting to my house and the time change, but he actually has been a Champ. However, I've been getting up before 6 and my sleep has been interrupted, so this post might be rambling and disjointed. 

I think he still looks a little nervous, don't you?

It's been a juggling act here; Son-in-law needed daughter's computer to do his homework for his programming class, as well as having a 6-2 job to deal with(he sleeps little), thus Daughter required my laptop to do her grading for her classes. For the past few days I've been in the strange position of not being able to blog or read blogs. That's meant more time with Grandson though, a real plus! He's a personable sweetheart, although into EVERYTHING. I've been getting lots of steps, even without running or walking officially. ;)

Here are four generations! My mom (Baby's Gigi or Great-grandma) was delighted to meet him in person. How my dad would have loved to get that opportunity! Sigh. 

John is having an uncle and aunt visit and stay with him, which adds on to his responsibilities with his medically fragile sister and mother, complicated by his support for his pregnant daughter (putting up a fence at their new place); he suggested a bike ride over the Tacoma Narrows Bridge before our relatives descended upon us, as we were both trying to get our houses ready for company. I was hesitant at first, stressed by too much to do, but saying yes was a great decision!

It was a beautiful day and the weather was perfect.

It wasn't a long ride, but we made it to Tacoma Narrows Airport where we had a local draft amber ale and dinner while watching the planes take off. It was a wonderful and relaxing experience.

That small aircraft is called an amphibian, according to John. Two people can fit in it! My response to him: you mean, two ELVES?

John has excellent ideas about things to do and places to go; now that we're both in the thick of momentarily transformed lives, I'm thankful that we took the time to make these incredible memories together. Who knows when we'll next get together? Life is suddenly crazy busy for both of us! In fact, Baby's up from his nap now, so MEME is back on the clock. :)

 

Doors open

In a literal sense, not having Mari here has allowed me to keep bedroom and bathroom doors open, which has taken some re-training. I don't believe in cats in bedrooms (at least, not mine) and Mari enjoys romping around with the toilet paper if she gets into the bathrooms. However, due to Ziggy's litter box situation, I need to remember that my downstairs bathroom door has to stay stay open. Except when someone is using the toilet of course! ;) The kids come tomorrow morning, and everything is as ready as it can be. I've decided that there is no way to be 100% prepared. As my late husband used to tell me, "Go with the flow." I will try! Hopefully, I won't "drown."

Don't worry, I still have two more bathrooms: one with a shower and bathtub and one with a combined shower/tub. Ryan will stay on New York work hours (6-2 on the West Coast) so his schedule will be much different from mine. We will all adapt, right? (perhaps not easily, but eventually)

Mari's pit room has been transformed into Grandson's by vacuuming 1,000 times, taking a bunch of junk stuff into the garage, and organizing the rest. The door always remained open to this room, but now will be closed a lot of the time. If I had taken a "before" photo of the mess, you would be lost in admiration. No wonder I'm exhausted though.

John was kind enough to put Ziggy's cat scratching post together for me yesterday. He's a very nice person, but driving me a little crazy right now for several reasons: he talks about how his daughters are perfect, he's cheap, he likes to watch too much YouTube, and he allows himself to be bamboozled by his financial advisor. The latest is that Glenn is pushing him to set up an irrevocable trust to avoid Washington state estate taxes. It will cost a lot of money! My question to him: Why not just gift $15,000 a year to your kids to keep your estate under the 2.1 million? That's what I intend to start doing. I don't like Glenn at all or his crappy advice.

Old Copper is coming along nicely. I'm a huge fan of coral colored flowers, as many of you already know. The weather has been lovely, thus my doors and windows have been open. The smell of fresh air is intoxicating. Due to the 70 degree sunshine, I even enjoyed mowing the lawn today and doing some weeding!

Every year my mom insists that I send a picture of this single peony to my friend Becky, whose late father loved this flower. Every year I tell my mom that Becky already knows! Today I realized that she really wants to communicate to Becky that someone is remembering and thinking about her father, Mike. My mom also has been sharing wonderful and touching memories of my dad, like why she fell in love with such a quiet man. He was kind and good-looking. She thought he would make an excellent father. (he did) She is missing his commentary on some of their more eccentric neighbors. It's hard to believe that Dad has been gone for only two months. It feels like forever. It is forever. 

 

Recovering

I've been many places where I've had to work with jet lag, but the hardest ones are sometimes those pesky three hour changes. I knew to stay up until a normal bed time here in my current time zone (then slept like the dead), but I didn't take into account a week of interrupted nights and very early mornings taking care of Grandson so that his parents could get some much needed rest. There is a reason why 64 year olds don't give birth! I also jumped straight into getting my house and a few rooms ready for the kids' May 30th arrival: outlet covers in,  Mari's my younger daughter's room completely cleaned out and vacuumed within an inch of its life, a nasty area rug thrown away, etc. I took an overdue picture of my vaccination card for next time I travel; when I boarded the plane to Seattle, I introduced myself to my father/son seatmates thus, "Hi, I'm Margaret and I'm fully vaccinated." The father: "Hello, I'm Vincente (showed me his Pfizer vaccination card on his phone), and this is my son (couldn't catch his name) who is a nurse and fully vaccinated too." After that, we settled down comfortably to read, and sleep. :)

In a little less than two weeks, my flowers awakened and gave me a beautiful homecoming.

I didn't miss out on my bearded irises either and I'm happy about that! 

My "Old Copper" rhododendron is beginning to bloom. 

Walking in 70 degree sun was a delight. Being outside is such a gift.

Since Sweet Baby had his one year appointment today, I dragged out photos of his mother at that age. He's 21 pounds and 30 inches while she was 22 pounds and 29 inches. There's something familiar about that smile! :)

Our little guy didn't enjoy his shots or blood draw which was heart rending and exhausting for his mom. In addition to that stress, his pediatrician diagnosed a heart murmur, so Grandson will need to visit a pediatric cardiologist. :(  Dr. Google assures me that the condition is very common in children, and mostly benign. In fact, Ashley had one and I still do. As my elderly parents frequently told me, "Don't borrow trouble." Yet none of us in our family is particularly good at following that admonition, although we've come up with strategies to deal with our worrying. Exercise and reading are mine. Lest you think I'm super healthy, Ben and Jerry's ice cream as well. ;)

 

On the Road Again AKA In the Air Again

As I sit here in Newark/Liberty Airport waiting for my flight back home, I'm revisiting a few of the more dramatic moments of my trip. 

• There was the evening my property manager and friend called to tell me of an issue with a neighbor of my rental. Bob has always been a PITA an issue; my mother-in-law, who loved everyone, hated him, and my late husband wouldn't work out in the yard if he saw Bob out there. To make a long story short, my 22 year old tenant came out to weed and mow (since I had complained about the state of those things), and Bob harassed him, going so far as to threaten him. "I'm going to go inside, get my gun and shoot you in the head." The kid, who isn't confrontational, went immediately inside and called the police. Their "brilliant" advice was for the tenant to buy a weapon. Thanks a lot for exacerbating the situation, Pierce County Sheriff's Department! (said sarcastically)Good grief. 
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• Since there were no expensive Ubers available from Ashley's town when I tried this morning, I ended up calling an UBER expensive taxi service. See what I did there? ;) It actually turned out to be a Lyft with a driver who was also the dispatcher. He juggled driving(if you can call it that!) with talking to many interesting people on the phone. I am so naive that I didn't realize that there were taxi regulars, who use taxis to go to the store, the doctor, and work. And most of them sounded super grouchy. I would be too if I didn't have a car!
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• I didn't want to ask about the back of the seat or the chain on the steering wheel. Contrary to what some people think of me, I DO know when to keep my mouth shut...sometimes. 
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• I had furry company on my last night in New York. It was great until he started playing; he uses his very sharp claws. Ouch! I hope this big guy adjusts well to my house in five days. He went to the vet today, and according to the vet is "overweight." However, the vet tech whispered to my daughter, "I think he's perfect!" 
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• Although Mr. Baby hasn't been sleeping well, and we think he's getting molars, he is still such a darling guy. As Ashley told me, "My face often hurts from smiling, and my jaw aches from laughing." He's so much fun, except when he's awake at 2 a.m.