Monday, Hannah and baby Aaron came to the hospital with the littles and I to visit Mama. We took her a tiny cut crystal vase with a fat little bouquet of all colors of pansies, one of her favorite flowers. I remember that she used to plant them every spring when I was little. They’d bloom, and she’d show me how to find ‘the face in the flower’.
We didn’t stay long; she was just finishing eating an early supper when we arrived, and, was tired. I think she’d eaten a little better than usual.
That evening, my Uncle Howard and Aunt Evelyn came to visit us. It had been a couple of years since we had seen them, so we were glad they came.
Bobby, Hannah, and Aaron dropped in for a little while. After Uncle Howard and Aunt Evelyn left, we watched a few minutes of a video they’d brought--some of baby Aaron, some of the work site and David’s shop. Meanwhile, Bobby was holding Aaron, pacing the floor with him…his eyes started closing, and he began falling asleep (Aaron, that is; not Bobby). Bobby sat down on the loveseat. Aaron immediately stiffened and fussed. Bobby leaped to his feet and continued pacing, singing, “On the road again!--”
That night I remodeled a blouse that used to be Dorcas’ that I’d decided to wear for our Fourth of July picnic. It has color blocks on the front--white, navy polka dot, red polka dot. I put in big shoulder pads, wide elastic at the waist, and shortened the sleeves by making the bottom edge into a cuff. I planned to wear a navy polka dot skirt with it. The question was, should I wear the straight skirt with the bigger, more noticeable polka dots, or should I wear the fuller skirt with the smaller, less noticeable dots? I finally settled on the full skirt, just in case I decided to play Frisbee at the park.
While I was sewing, Larry took his blood pressure: it was 133/103--that bottom number was the highest it’s ever been. That was probably because he didn’t take his medicine Sunday, since, when he does, he has troubles staying awake in church--and then he forgot to take it Monday, too. It went down to normal in a few minutes. He will see the doctor again Thursday.
Nitric oxide makes fireflies flash, did you know that? I read this in our newspaper:
Not to be confused with nitrous oxide, the “laughing gas” sometimes used recreationally and by dentists to ease discomfort, nitric oxide controls blood pressure in humans and other animals. Every firefly species has a distinctive pattern of flashes, and there are some 130 species in the United States.
So…do you reckon Larry will start flashing soon, on account of his blood pressure medicine? And will it be his ears? His nose? His big toe? Hmmm…
Tuesday Hannah and Aaron came and we all went to the hospital to see Mama again. Afterwards, we went to Norfolk to take my camera to a repair shop. They will send it in and then give me an estimate for fixing it. Perhaps I’ll have it back in a couple of months.
Upon leaving the camera shop, we went to a little boutique called “Moms 2 Babies”, where Hannah thought she would buy a little outfit for Aaron. There were all sorts of cute things--mostly over our budget. We departed empty-handed, and went to Wal-Mart, where things are more in our price range.
For Caleb, I got a bright red striped shirt, a pair of jeans, and tennis shoes. Victoria wound up with both tennis shoes and sandals because they were having a clearance sale, and we got both for the price of one. We did all this shopping at a break-neck speed, because baby Aaron is not a big fan of shopping, and he was beginning to inform us that we had been in Wal-Mart quite long enough.
We snatched some juice and granola bars to eat on the way home, and Hannah got some long packages of yogurt, about the size of icicle pops, the top of which is to be torn off, and then the yogurt is squeezed into one’s mouth. We’d never had them before. Yummy! It hit the spot.
While we were gone, the Schwan man came to my house, and only Dorcas was home.
She said, “I don’t know what to buy,” and he informed her gaily, “Oh, I know exactly what your mother always gets,” and before she knew it, she had bought a nice big pile of groceries.
That evening, my sister Lura Kay called to tell me she had made plans to have Mama admitted to the Skilled Nursing Unit tomorrow, when they were planning to release her. She would not have been able to care for herself, and someone really needed to be with her 24 hours a day. Mama was relieved, I think; she’d been worried about what she would do if she were sent home.
After supper we stopped by the hospital to see her. We didn’t stay long, because she was tired; she said quite a few people had come to see her that day, and she had not had a chance to sleep, all day long. Caleb bumped the garbage can, and Mama teased him about tumbling into it, and having to clamber for all he was worth to get back out. Of course he giggled that contagious giggle of his, and made Mama laugh.
The nurses all like Mama. You can see why, in the following story: one of the nurses was moving things around in the room, and knocked off a tall vase full of flowers someone had just sent Mama. The vase shattered to smithereens. The nurse was all remorseful, rushing to clean it up and find another vase to put the large bouquet into.
Mama told her, “Oh, don’t worry over it so; anybody could have done it! It’s okay.”
That night, we went to see the fireworks at Ag Park. We barely arrived in time. We went whipping into our old favorite spot that everyone always seems to save for us, and while we were climbing out the fireworks started. Caleb, Victoria, and I sat on the hood and watched. We were practically right underneath them… quite a show. Bobby, Hannah, and Aaron, and Teddy and Amy, were there. Aaron was not frightened in the slightest. Indeed, he slept through it for a while, until the very bright flashes, rather than the ka-booms, awoke him. And then his little head went up and down as he watched the show.
After that, we all went out to Keith and Esther’s, Lawrence and Norma included, and watched more fireworks supplied by Keith, Bobby, and Teddy.
Soon we were rushing home again, and the children took baths and hurried off to bed.
Larry and I then went off to Sapp Bros. gift shop to get some presents for Dorcas. Her birthday is on the Fourth of July; she is now 19 years old. We got her a big resin teddy bear, a large raspberry candle in a handled jar, and four small cranberry candles. I also gave her a big cookbook and some flowers in a cute little pot with red, white, and blue hearts on it.
The next stop was UnSmart Foods, where I got food for the picnic.
I made two dozen muffins, lemon poppy seed and blueberry (that’s two different kinds, in case you were wondering) and fruit salad with cherry vanilla yogurt.
And then I finally went to bed.
The next morning, Dorcas made pink lemonade while Larry made chili dogs--that is, he tried to; but I’d bought pork and beans instead of chili to pour on the dogs! Oops. That’s the result of shopping too late at night, when eyes are at half-mast.
Well, he added picanté sauce and some taco seasoning, and wound up with some downright yummy somethingorotherdogs, if not exactly chili dogs.
Dorcas finished stirring the pink lemonade--and then she discovered that Joseph had used up all the ice, and there wasn’t a solitary cube left in the house. Joseph was shortly dispatched to the grocery store for a bag of ice.
We gathered up our food and headed for Pawnee Park.
After the picnic, Lydia went home with some friends of ours, and they all went wading in the Loup River. We were the last ones to leave the park, so we collected all the things everyone had left behind--food, camera, fan, thermoses, Frisbee…
Teddy, Amy, and Charles came that afternoon to watch some videos. Teddy had just bought a pack of old WWII movies from Wal-Mart. We also looked at the video I’d taken at the park. There’s one big advantage videos have over still shots--you can go right home and look at them, without having to take them somewhere to have them developed! Cheaper, too.
Mama was moved to the Skilled Nursing Unit that afternoon. This is a part of the hospital where people can rent a room as long as they like (it’s not cheap), and treat it sort of like a little apartment of their own. She’d had some trouble breathing that morning, and they’d put her on oxygen for a while.
A few of us visited her that afternoon. Mama had been served her supper not long before we arrived. She hardly ate any of it. If anybody thought we were starving her (and I think the thought crossed their minds, from some of the questions they asked), I’m sure they realize by now that that was not the case; she just plain has practically no appetite. Once again, we didn’t stay long, because she’d just asked to have her bed lowered so she could sleep a bit. She was very tired, and not as well, I think, as she was the previous day. Her shelf in her little room is all full of flowers.
Later, Larry helped me take Mama’s parakeet to Hannah’s house. It scared the poor bird, traveling in the Suburban. Fortunately, it is not far to Hannah’s house. He calmed down once we installed him in Hannah’s kitchen. The cage needed to be cleaned, but we decided to wait until the next day, partly so as not to upset the bird more than we already had by moving him, and partly because we were planning to watch fireworks again. I didn’t want Hannah to clean it, just in case she might be more allergic to birds than we thought, and have an asthma attack.
Baby Aaron was awake, smiling at us and cooing. It’s hard to bid him adieu, when he’s doing that! Sweet little baby. I like being a grandma.
Soon we were on our way to Fremont to watch their fireworks display. We found a place to park by none other than Bobby, Hannah, and Aaron, and Bobby’s family, too! Several other friends were there, too. Watching fireworks with friends and family always makes it better, don’t you think?
It was getting late, and that was the last night it would still be legal to light off fireworks, and I wanted to take a video of the littles with sparklers--but their sparklers were all gone. The fireworks stands in Columbus would probably have been closed by the time we got back, so we stopped in Schuyler and bought several packages of sparklers. Upon arriving home, Joseph lit a big candle, and the littles lit their sparklers from it. And I took videos. There is one funny instance when Lydia’s sparkler wilted and broke right in half and she made such a funny face--that is the sort of circumstance where video has a definite advantage over a 35mm. (I’m trying to convince myself; can you tell?) (Waaaa! I miss my camera!)
There was a fly in Victoria’s room that night, buzzing around all over the place while I was helping her on with her pajamas. I turned the hall light on, and her light off.
“There,” I said, “Now the fly will go out of your room.”
“Will he fly into the light fixture in the kitchen and get killed like the moths?” inquired Victoria.
“Probably not,” I said, “Flies don’t seem to do that very often.”
She gave it a bit of consideration. “Do the millers like to get killed?”
“No,” I replied, “They don’t know they’re going to, when they head for the light.”
“Oh,” she said quickly, coming to a conclusion, “Do they just fly along with their eyes shut, and land in there accidentally?”
The fly--or one of his relatives--is now whizzing around my head as I sit here typing, driving me nuts. I periodically snatch up a flyswatter (a friend’s little boy used to call them ‘flyslappers’) and swipe at him, but he refuses to sit down and make a nice target of himse--HEY!!! I got him! Ha, so much for you, you pest.
Thursday I was back to cleaning closets and sorting clothes. This time, I attacked the front hall closet, where in the far reaches were clothes Hannah and Dorcas had grown out of several years ago. Just as I had suspected, there were clothes that would now fit Hester. Ever notice how cleaning winds up making a huge mess of things before it gets better? Before long, I had the front hall littered with piles of clothes. The strange thing was, after removing armload upon armload of clothing from that closet, it is still full and overflowing! I think we are witnessing The Twelve Basketfuls Left Over, only with clothes rather than with food.
That evening while visiting Mama, she told me that two young women had come to her room offering to give her therapy. She declined. I’m afraid, if someone tried to give her therapy, they would break a bone or really hurt her, because her bones are paper thin from osteoporosis. The doctor said that he could not tell anything from the X-rays, because her bones are so porous he could read a newspaper through them. Every time the nurses do any little thing for Mama--straighten her pillows, bring her food, help her to her chair or back to the bed--she thanks them warmly. One nurse told us, “She’s the sweetest little lady I’ve ever cared for.” She was better Thursday, saying that she could breathe easier than the previous day.
Larry, Hester, Caleb, Victoria, and I went to Bobby and Hannah’s to clean out the bird cage.
“How many people does it take to hold down one bird?” asked Bobby as he let us all in the front door.
We soon had the cage spick and span. The parakeet seems to have adjusted to his new surroundings nicely, and has started trilling again, just as he used to. He likes it when Hannah plays the piano, and he even trills when the baby cries. Hannah filled all her bird feeders just outside the back door, and when the little parakeet heard all the noisy chirps and twitters from the outside birds, he hopped around his cage and tweeted and peeped back at them.
Socks sleeps in the oddest positions. He sometimes sleeps on his stomach with all four paws sticking straight out at the sides, rather like drawings a child makes of an animal. We have numerous pictures of him sprawled out all funny. Friday night he was on my piano bench, front legs splayed to the sides, with his head lopped far off the edge of the bench, silly cat.
We were getting ready to go visit Mama, so I picked up a brush and began brushing Victoria’s hair. Suddenly the brush came to an abrupt stop, and I nearly pulled the poor child’s head from her shoulders.
“Aarrgghh, what is it?” I exclaimed.
It was gum. I got it out by rubbing peanut butter into it. It took a while, and I thought we might have to cut it out, but when I shampooed it, the gum was gone.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
Victoria tipped her head. “Well, you see,” she explained, “I was just chewing away, and the hair jumped right in there!”
Not long after that, I heard a dreadful thumping on the stairs.
I cried, “Caleb fell!” and dashed toward the steps. I ran around the corner, looked down the stairs--and there was Caleb on the steps, head on the floor at the bottom, legs still on the steps, and he seemed to be all whoppyjaw, and he wasn’t getting up.
My heart nearly stopped. I flew down the stairs, and then, after asking him where it hurt and understanding that it was only his ankle--as opposed to his neck--I carefully picked him up, instructing him to tell me if it hurt. Larry came, loosened his boot and removed it, then his sock. He took off the other boot, too, so we could compare the ankles and see if anything was misshapen.
It was not.
I helped him stand up, and he could put weight on it okay, so we breathed a sigh of relief and continued our lives as normally as is possible for the likes of us.
As we were leaving the hospital that evening, I pushed open the door to the stairway we generally go down.
“Oh!” exclaimed Caleb, reading the notice on the door, “You’re supposed to keep the door closed! You should have just walked through it.”
Since Hester's and Lydia’s birthday money was burning holes in their pocketbooks, we took them to Wal-Mart (the girls and the pocketbooks, both). Hester got a “Tekno Puppy the robotic newborn”--a little computerized dog; and Lydia got a small bright red PT Cruiser, remote controlled--that cost four times more than the last one, which she returned since it wouldn’t turn to the left. It’s neat…it has a powerful little motor in it, and does all sorts of things.
That night Victoria, standing near Larry, called to Caleb: “Caaaaleb!”
“My name’s not Caleb,” said Larry.
“Oh, Daddy,” said Victoria, wrinkling her nose at him.
Minutes later, Joseph called from the bathroom, “Dorcas? Could you hand me some shampoo?” and Larry, promptly handing him some shampoo that happened to be sitting on the counter, answered, “Sure! But my name’s not Dorcas.”
After the fifth time he did that to one of the kids, he found himself scampering for his life with them in hot pursuit, squirt guns in hand.
Saturday we went to LensCrafters in Grand Island. We had appointments for Joseph, Lydia, and Caleb. Joseph’s eyes are better than they used to be, which I expected; that kind of vision continues to improve till the late teens. Lydia and Caleb are both farsighted. Caleb had his eyes dilated, that the doctor could better determine his exact prescription, so he had to wear sunglasses Saturday and Sunday, anytime he went outside. After picking out frames, we learned that LensCrafters does not accept Medicaid. The doctor accepted it; but not LensCrafters. So we took the prescriptions and left; we’ll get them at Wal-Mart.
It was suppertime, and everyone was starved, so we stopped at Taco John’s and ordered some food, and then went to Hall County Park. The children played for a bit, but it was too, too hot--100°--and we soon headed for home.
Yesterday Robert had a bad case of laryngitis and was unable to preach. We are fortunate to have those who can fill in on short notice.
And now Lydia and Caleb are ready to go to Wal-Mart to order their glasses, and we are going to visit Mama. And that’s the news for the week.
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