Nana

Happy Easter! It may be hard to be happy this Easter, however, because we got the call last night that my husband's grandmother had passed away. She was the last of our son's great-grandparents and the only one living while they were. My Grandma died a few months before Logan was born and was the only other of the great-grandparents even close to being around to see them. I was quite close with my Grandma and grew fairly close to James' in these past few years that I had known her. We would take the boys for a visit at least once - usually twice - a week and always enjoyed it. I am so happy that we were able to spend time with her these last few years. I don't know if Logan will have definite memories of her and I know Walter won't but family is so important and I believe that even if Logan has no clear memory to take away from our visits, I hope that they help instill a good grounding of love and duty for family. I also believe that my boys were helpful in brightening up her day whenever they were there. Nana's mind was just as sharp the last time we saw her as the first even though her body was rapidly deteriorating around it. She had been in and out (mostly in) the hospital for several months now with various complications and complications of complications. It's often the way but she eventually passed in her sleep and, I believe, as comfortably as possible. We all knew it was coming but it still is a shock. I don't know of any way death could come that wouldn't be. We had been planning on visiting her again today but won't be able to. I think, though, it was good that at our last visit we didn't know it would be our last one. I think, too, for Logan that if we had seen her when she was on oxygen and barely able to talk it would be hard to understand/explain and a frightening thing more than a positive visit. Or perhaps he would understand far too much - which could also be a problem. The last couple times we went he didn't want to give her a hug goodbye because she was 'sick'. I don't know where this strange fear came from or what he was really thinking about it but it makes me wonder how much he actually knew. Anyway she will be much missed but I am so very thankful that we were able to spend that time with her.

At least you don't have to shovel it...

But you certainly can!

the boys

I was going to write something to go with this picture but my boy is now awake so I'm going to interact with him for a while instead...

Various pictures

I've mentioned previously how I don't want to flood my fb with repetitive pictures of the boys so here are some that I want to post but will only impose on the very few that stop by to read this rather than clogging the newsfeeds of my hoards of friends on fb.

Cats

As I sit here I feel a prickling behind my eyes. It grows and intensifies and they start to fill up. No, I am not about to cry - it's allergies. I never had allergies before and am not too happy to have started them now. They first arrived with little Walter for some reason and, although they have lessened in intensity in the few months since they began (I no longer attempt to gouge my eyes out with a grapefruit spoon at every opportunity and now only consider it from time to time), I have a feeling they are here to stay. Hmm. Yet another reason to dislike having my husband's cats around. Score one more for my Mom's rules during my childhood. Now I know why there were no (shedding) pets allowed in the house. Except now that my brother has (temporarily) moved back into Mom's, his dog has moved in with him. The thought of my mother growing softer while I start to emulate her previous strictness is somewhat disconcerting. Maybe I shouldn't think about it too much...

Chunky Monkey

In a monkey suit...

Faces

My crazy kid at times enjoys taping himself with my webcam. The following video is the result of one session. Audio is optional for this one because the only thing audible is James and myself in the background discussing various things we've explained to Logan and whether or not they were warranted at his age... Riveting, I know! Recently I have neglected writing here because I have started a twitter and have been exploring (I think the word is trolling or something?) some of the other social media sites available these days (and probably for the last eon, but only recently in my universe). I originally had decided against having anything to do with twitter but recently having been exposed to it I decided that maybe it was a good exercise for me to try to make interesting statements with a limited word count. I think it's today's equivalent of the heroic couplet. Or something. I would totally follow Alexander Pope on twitter. Also crazy that I had to go back and add Pope's christian name to clarify that I wasn't referring to the Catholic Pope. Also it's nice that I only have a few friends on it and so most of my tweets are written for an abstract idea of an audience. Anyway I know it's a good practice for me because there hasn't been a tweet I've written that I haven't wanted to go over the word-limit and had to work to reduce the wordiness or re-think the content. No one wants to have the verbal runs if one can help it, right? Well maybe back when one was paid per word but that's a whole other kettle of fish.