Rambling

The weeks have been flowing by so swiftly I'm starting to lose my footing.  Emails aren't sent, errands are forgotten, FB is ignored (the horror!), and I'm certain I still must be only 33* or so but next month I'll have yet another birthday and my brief time on this planet is that much less.  In the movies they always show those quick short cuts of daily life - happy, sad, or otherwise...work, commute, dinner with the kids, repeat - right before the calamitous plot twist.  Daily life, interrupted.
    *I'm no where even close to 33.

Let's hope for no more plot twists.

But we need a little bit more life around here, yes?  Daily life, elevated & constructed into something blog worthy?

Shall I blame the job?  Maybe.  Given the choice between staring slack jawed at the second hand as it sweeps around from 4:59, and the current all consuming "Hell, how did it get to be 4 already?", I definitely have the better deal, and it's not always this busy, but I am d.o.n.e. when I get home. 

But it hasn't been all work.  The boy & I have been reading Harry Potter together at night - two weeks ago we reached the end of Book Four, I turned off his light, then I abandoned all restraint and spent the next 4 days reading ahead to the end.  Not to worry, the kids were perfectly happy eating cereal & PB&Js, and I'm sure they they picked up some valuable life skills in my (emotional) absence -   don't keep PB in the fridge!  Also, if I know you IRL, I apologize for the recent heavy HP references.  And last?  The book made me a wee bit sad for all the moms, me included, who couldn't keep their babies safe with the magic of love alone.  Leave it to me to get weepy over a kids book.

What else?

On Friday I hit another work-i-versary and was gifted with a bunch more vacation time which I immediately started burning by flying to Los Angeles to see Gigi.  She's not doing well and she is quite explicit about wanting to leave us.  I find it hard to reconcile these two ends of the disability spectrum - my daughter, just starting out, and Gigi, who was ragingly independent for over 90 years and is suddenly, profoundly not.  Her heart is strong and her pain is, we hope, well controlled - I believe her wish for an end is a direct function of her lost independence.

There's obviously no easily framed picture of disability.  Everyone draws their own lines of what is and isn't acceptable, of what is and isn't compatible with life.  Decent people don't try to inflict their lines on others and I suspect most find the line to be a mirage anyway - if they get up close it dances off again.  You adjust, adapt, and find joy where you can.  I don't know where I'm going with this...  It strikes me as naive to wish a 94 year old woman rally but her new world isn't dramatically different from those of several children with significant needs I follow here on the world wide web and, well, it's difficult.  I want to respect the feisty woman she is, I think she's earned the right to go out as she sees fit, but there are great grandchildren to admire, the smell of toast in the morning, and the sound of the wind in the eucalyptus trees in her backyard.  

Firsts, Flames, & Falls

The Boy attended his First Communion last Saturday and, all warnings to the contrary, I did not burst into flames upon entering the church.  I will spare y'all my convoluted thoughts on religion, the Catholic one in particular, since it was his day and this is just a nice excuse to post some pictures.

Today we spent at the park taking pictures for the local Down syndrome calendar which is only relevant because the kids wore the same outfits today as they are here and nobody is allowed to notice (when I finally get around to posting them) the different between my iPhone photos and those from the nice lady's four figure camera.  

There was cake. 

The Girl was Very Excited about it.

Evidently.

I think forks are unnecessary too. 

It was also my MIL's birthday. 

Happy Birthday! 

The Boy and his Godparents.  

I may have not burst into flames but five minutes into the service The Girl took a header off Matt's lap and into a bible, giving herself this rather impressive shiner.   The jokes just write themselves around here, don't they?  The lady today assured me she could photoshop the remaining purple out.  Wouldn't want anyone thinking God had it in for my special angel.

P.S.  Matt would like to point out that The Girl was next to him, not on his lap, and it may have been a music book, not a bible, but my story is better so it stands.