Owl

The little owl had a good Halloween.  Small parade at school -- lovely.  Then a walk up and and down our street with the neighbors (cat and falcon).  I'll post on making the costume some time in the next week, it's a keeper.  Thank you to GoGo and Grandpa for walking around with Liam and me and to GG and Grandma for staying home and handing out candy and cleaning up the kitchen!

Stand back . . . pumpkins are being carved

Pizza Friday and pumpkin carving.  Pretty fun.  Three pumpkins down and hopefully no more to go, although Liam has his eye on one of the gourds decorating the porch.

Tonight Liam said to me "Oh Mommy! Thank you, thank you for this pizza.  It is double not yucky."  Double not yucky.  Umm, thanks, I think.  (For some reason this reminds me of Sidney Morgenbesser -- whose name I just had to look up -- and the joke/story about the linguistics lecturer and how in English (Or was it all languages?) a double negative is a positive, but there is no such thing as a double positive meaning the negative; punchline: yeah, right.)  

Photos of the finished pumpkins to follow.  Stay tuned.

 

Making

I think I've done more sewing in the past week or so. . .than in months, years maybe.  Cat and mouse masks, owl costume work, and now this felt birthday crown for Liam's school. . ..  So nice to have the office/guest/sewing/spare room torn apart with fabric and pins allover and the sewing machine out. 

I do love to make things.  The crown pattern is from here, of course.  In the Creative Family book.

Cat and Mouse

Liam has been struggling lately, again.  Talking a lot about Will's death; easy to anger; clingy and difficult.  Not sleeping as well.  Acting out.  The babysitter is about at the end of her rope and God help us if she quits. 

Two steps forward one step back, that's what someone reminded me on Friday.  Never straight ahead.

But I do see it, sometimes, little parts of his future.  He fell* and cut his ear badly today.  Blood everywhere and one look tells me it needs stitches.  So off we go to urgent care.  And he can pull it together.  Can listen, can understand what is going to happen, can trust.  When he said "I will hold still, please don't wrap me in the blanket," I said, "Don't wrap him, he will hold still."  And he did.  Sank deeper into my lap, took some deep breaths, stopped crying and whining, and sat still for at least 5 minutes while I sang quiet songs in his good ear and showed him pictures on my phone.  Turns out they could glue his ear back together instead of stitching it, which I think hurt less, but required the doctor to hold the two edges of the cut together (firmly) while the glue set.

By all accounts so far he will be fine.  No permanent damage.  He now thinks it's hilarious that his ear was fixed with glue; although he still doesn't want to talk about how he hurt it. 

We came home, watched some TV, made pumpkin bread, made the jam, and finished sewing our cat and mouse presents for the little boy across the street's birthday party tomorrow.  They are a total rip off from here and I will make these again; now that I've got a template cut and worked through it a few times they will come together quickly.   Worked a little on his owl costume for Halloween.  Stay home day but for our one unexpected excursion.

He feels fragile to me these days, but I know he is strong; little, still very little, but strong.

*He fell while jumping from one couch to the other (which he knows he is not supposed to do) while I was outside for less than 2 minutes getting a box of plums from the car to make jam.  I heard the crash as I walked up the porch stairs, but still can't quite figure out what he cut himself on.  

Advances in CF drug therapy

Hello Universe -- I respectfully ask that you give a little power and attention to this; Gods and Goddesses please guide and inspire the scientists and researchers, help these medications to work -- really work -- and get them to the people who need them quickly and at a cost normal working humans can afford.

First drug ever, as far as I know, to treat the underlying salt transport problem that causes CF to be so deadly goes to the FDA with a request for accelerated review and approval this week.  Thank you God for letting it get this far.  It's a start, it's a start, it's a start.

Liam tells me a story

After dinner Liam asked if he could play "lost kitten."  When I had asked him earlier today what he had played at school he told me "lost kitten" so I had been wondering about the game.  "Sure," I said.  Here's how it went.

Liam crawls around on the couch mewing; and speaking "Mommy...looooook....loooook...a little lost kitten, it's a lost kitten."  More mewing and the kitten crawls into my lap so I can pet it and Liam tells me it's story.  

Mommy, this kitten, this kitten, see, its owner has died.  He died.  The owner had a big, big sickness and after a while the sickness got so big that his body totally stopped working and he died.  But while he still had a big, big sickness, but before he died, he let the kitten outside and the kitten got lost.  And when the kitten came back he looked for the owner all around the world and he looked everywhere in the whole universe, and he came home and looked everywhere and everywhere all around the house, and all around the yard, and all around everywhere, again and again, but no owner.  So the kitten sat down and said 'hmmm' and 'think, think, think' and on the last think the kitten said, 'oh, I know, I think my da . . .my owner. . .has died.'  And now, Mommy, this kitten has come to live with you.  What do you think?

Then Liam said "Mommy, I'm really talking about Daddy, you know.  Even though it was a long, long time ago I still remember snuggling with Daddy on his hospital bed, when his hospital bed was right there, next to the tv cabinet, where the blue chair is.  I remember that."

Yes, small one, I remember that too.  Your Daddy loved to snuggle with you and talk with you and read you stories more than anything, and we can always remember exactly what that was like.

Birthday Girls

We are so blessed and lucky to have these two women in our lives.  Happy Birthday Grandma.  Happy Birthday GG.  Thanks for everything you do for us; I hope you both have great years ahead.

Here they are both looking at Liam doing (yet another) inappropriate thing at the table.

 

A note on the cakes: cake #1 is from here.  These recipies are always so perfect; every instruction is easy to understand, all questions answered, and they always work out just right.  Cake #2 is from here.  Also very easy to follow and who can resist something called Southern Strawberry Cake.  The frosting roses were made by a local bakery and frozen on waxed paper for me to take home.  At less than $5 for all these roses I think it may be the last good deal left on the planet.