Wednesday, December 21, 2016


She's really not easy to distract from the iphone as soon as I'm holding it up like a camera. (Even when I try and use stealth - lol)

So, I say: "Mommy, you look so sad. Are you sad?"
She says: "Noooo."
Then I say: "Are you happy?"
She says: "Yes."
Then I say: "Can you smile for the camera."
She says: "I'll try."
And the above expression is the best I get out of her.


It's really early in the morning.  It's too early even for birds, but Mommy and I are awake. I laid her back down and now she's watching pretty scenes on her TV while we wait for the sun to come up. I don't take too many pictures of her lying on her side, but she does get turned on her side from time to time, and here is a pic to prove it.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

The Hospice nurse suggested that we let her hold on to rolled up washcloths to help with the contractures she's developing in her hands. Mom's so cute with these washcloths. She examines them really critically and turns her hands this way and that to look at them, and then when she wants to look at her book or card or other object that I've got lying there to entertain her, she lays the washcloth carefully aside. Mommy makes me smile.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016


She's really concentrating on the view out the window.



Believe it or not, that glass feeder was
 full an hour before these pictures were taken.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016


Here she is watching Stephan fill the bird feeders this morning.

Sunday, December 4, 2016



The whole time she was getting her breakfast poured through the tube, she was just intent on this book, and she was so happily intent. She was just exuding a feeling of deep interest. (I'm not sure what she was looking at, but whatever it was, it's amazing.)

So, I decided to share with you, and as soon as I took the picture, she looked right up -- for the first time in probably a half hour. I think she's got some kind of "picture" radar. (The phone doesn't make noise. She just knows.)

When she looked up, I said: "I love you," and she said: "You do?" with this tone of amazement, and here is the picture of her saying that:


Friday, December 2, 2016



It's been a long time.

Soon after my last post, Mom was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia and acute respiratory failure. She was dangerously ill, and I thought for quite a few days that she wasn't going to make it, and then there was so much going on that I didn't have the energy to think about blogging. Then we were home, and I had to learn to care for her with a PEG tube and even less mobility and communication than she had before. I got to know some wonderful home-health care and then Hospice personnel. Without their help, I don't know how I could have kept my sense of humor, let my sanity, but life seemed too overwhelming to blog.

After that, writing the post that I'm writing now grew more and more easy to put off as the amount of things I had to catch a reader up on grew and grew with every passing day, then week, then month.

Frankly, if I write a "catch-up post" with just the highlights of the last five months, it will be pretty long and cumbersome to read, let alone write. So, I'm just going to start as though I'd never stopped or as  though this is a brand-new blog just starting fresh in the middle of life.

Mommy is watching space documentaries on Youtube today. She is just fixated on descriptions of stars and whether or not Pluto is a real planet or merely a dwarf one.