End of Weekend, 11/9

Here is a picture of Mom with my daughter, Chloe, and Adam's son, Christopher, in 2006 when we all vacationed in Italy. So sorry to have not written all weekend. It was a very full weekend, full of lots of love and family and support and help... and of course... tears. My Dad and Mary arrived Friday afternoon and we feasted on some of Irm's casseroles! (Thank you, thank you, thank you!... in fact, while we were eating, my dear friend, Irm, showed up at the door with yet another tasty dish! What a wonderful thing!) Aunt Martha came for a visit Saturday morning and was here while Phil and Molly went to her last soccer game. Mom also got a visit Saturday afternoon from her college friends, Diane and George, who drove from Pennsylvania. I remember seeing pictures of Diane in Mom's wedding album... and Diane brought a picture of her wedding where Mom and Mary were both bridesmaids! They stayed a while and had a nice visit. Mom seemed very content to sit in the middle of her college buddies. She napped on and off as she needed to and finally after a few hours asked to retire to the bedroom, she had lots of tears as they were leaving, but we just reminded her how much people love her. Adam and Ladylove were here on Saturday too and only just left an hour ago on Sunday evening. Mom got lots of pampering and record-number of arm-stretches! Adam and Phil carried her to the 2nd floor so she could have a proper shower which I think she appreciated. We figured we'd do this every weekend when Adam is visiting, Mercy will keep doing morning sponge bathing and I'll keep washing her hair once or twice during the week. Everything is going well with Mercy... a few bumps along the way... mostly to do with the doggies, but we're working to smooth it all out. Mercy let us know that she couldn't hack it with the dogs sleeping in the room with them. They were jumping on her bed while she was sleeping so they could see out the window and chewing on their feet NOISILY during the night. We promised Mercy that we would fix the problem, and we promptly went about trying to resettle the dogs into the kitchen to sleep. Since they were having so much trouble relaxing in there last night, we decided to make use of some "Rescue Remedy" which is a holistic "anti-anxiety" remedy found in our local health food store, safe for people and animals (FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!) to help them calm down. Not sure yet how well it's working but we'll keep trying to "normalize" it all for them. They've had some good walks in the woods this weekend and I'm hoping now that my kids are back to school this week, I can try to get them in a routine where we walk every day. My Daisy, on the other hand... back to the vet tomorrow with her oozing wound and abcess under her tail. She's still on the antibiotics, but the vet may need to place a drain or two to help her wounds to drain properly. She just keeps licking the one... which IS, after all, what dogs do... but is probably contributing to its constant drainage and bleeding.

Mom's been asking for the Ativan pretty regularly and I'm certain it's helping her to be able to relax and get some rest. She and Mercy get on well, Mercy is finding nice, gentle ways of communicating with Mom and we often catch her singing softly. And then when she's in her basement room by herself and we're all upstairs... she is NOT singing softly... she is down there totally getting it on with her Ghana-self! She's singing and carrying on and sounding like she's just having a blast! It's fun to listen to and is a testament to her fun-loving nature. So hopefully tomorrow can be the beginning of a nice stretch of some routine time. Annie is planning on visiting next weekend. Tomorrow (Monday) will be her first day back at school... she attempted to return last Wednesday but it proved to be too soon. She and Eric have been busy ripping up carpeting at Mom and Dave's house which will need to be replaced before they can move in there. I look forward to my Sister's visit, and I'm sure Mom does too. Thank you all for reading and contributing. I'll try to get back to writing every day, even though sometimes it feels as if there isn't that much different to report.