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Jul. 14th, 2008 11:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sublimatedangelThere's so much I haven't been writing about that I should be; daily life and everything inside of me. I'm in a pretty melancholy place but hopefully I can keep from sounding dismal.
Our new kitten is full of love and mischief. For the longest time, he only wanted to doze, purring, as high up on me as he could get. He still spends most nights curled up on the robe next to my pillow, his mama-cat-figure, but is also more energetic and getting into trouble. He's got radar for abandoned human food that rivals any I've ever seen, and is beginning to learn things like "kitties do not go on the counters". He and Frodo get along very well, both playing and snuggling. Her elven highness is a bit more aloof, as always, but they're good too. I fully intend to post pictures of kitten cuteness, but I just haven't found the time.
In other animal news... our big goldfish in the little pond out front died, but not before making lots of baby goldfish. The babies are just old enough to start showing some gold and black instead of that uniform baby gray, and are very brave and curious when I'm around. Not sure that our itty bit of water can support them all, but we'll see how many survive to adulthood and take it from there. Lillies are putting out lots of pads but no flowers yet, and whatever was disturbing things appears to have given up and moved on to easier targets, which is a relief.
Potty training with Alex is finally, finally making sense to him and has been really successful this time around, which is huge with the happy and relief and such. Other that that... things are pretty par for the course where he's concerned, some good days and some bad days. I feel like I'm mostly doing a good job as a parent, and try not to let the failures bring me too far down.
I've been really introspective and introverted for a long time now. Things with my mom aren't good; she'd been getting worse before her last chemo, and it didn't seem to help like it usually does, and they didn't bother trying this month. Her Dr's trying to get approval for a different poison in the hopes that it works better, but who knows? In the meantime, seeing her is painful. I try to make the most of the time I have with her, because who knows how long it will last at all, and how long she'll be even this together. Her sense of judgement is far out of whack, and I can see that sometimes she knows it and sometimes she doesn't. I have to talk to her doctor about taking her licence away, and have kind of prepared her for that. We talked again today about the fact that she still needs a second witness' signature for all the power of attorney and final wishes stuff; something that's been ongoing but is clearly on her mind because we both know that it may be needed soon if she doesn't swing back to the slightly-more-normal side of things. We're still struggling with getting her into the system for social security/permanent disability income, which is longer than anticipated, and everything feels like emptying the ocean with a child's pail. I couldn't help but wonder if by the time we get her finances settled if she'll even be able to live the life she is now, with a house and a car and all those normal, taken-for-granted things. When do you make the decision to go to an assisted living kind of situation? She wavers back and forth between capable enough to fake her way through normal society and... well, not. It's so scary, and I worry so much, and strangers go around giving me platitudes about what a nice job I'm doing and how lucky we are to have one another. A year and a half into it, and it still feels like a bad dream sometimes. I'm so much like her in so many ways, and I've seen my own decline, how I lose track of things (and people), how I'm floundering and still putting on her brave face of everything being fine and under control, because I don't know how to do anything else. Most of the time I chalk my faults up to stress, but in my darker moments I wonder if I'm not just following her same path, gradually losing my mind but refusing to admit it and too good at keeping up appearances for anyone to see it.
So, you know... that's kind of been sucking.
On the bright side, I've got two weddings and a slew of birthdays coming up, which is stressful but joyous too. I'll be celebrating a little late this year, with a (hopefully) lovely evening picnic on August 2nd. Official invites to be sent as well, but you know... people can pencil me in on their calendars if they want to. Lots of good social stuff planned; it'll be busy but I'm going to do my best to spend as much quality time with people I care about as I possibly can. There'll be out-of-town family back in the bay area, and budding new friendships to coax and cultivate, and a serious lot of baby/toddler indulgence which is more sweet than bitter these days. And with that, I should be off to bed to get some sleep - naughty cats have been keeping me up a lot lately, so I can use all I can get.
Our new kitten is full of love and mischief. For the longest time, he only wanted to doze, purring, as high up on me as he could get. He still spends most nights curled up on the robe next to my pillow, his mama-cat-figure, but is also more energetic and getting into trouble. He's got radar for abandoned human food that rivals any I've ever seen, and is beginning to learn things like "kitties do not go on the counters". He and Frodo get along very well, both playing and snuggling. Her elven highness is a bit more aloof, as always, but they're good too. I fully intend to post pictures of kitten cuteness, but I just haven't found the time.
In other animal news... our big goldfish in the little pond out front died, but not before making lots of baby goldfish. The babies are just old enough to start showing some gold and black instead of that uniform baby gray, and are very brave and curious when I'm around. Not sure that our itty bit of water can support them all, but we'll see how many survive to adulthood and take it from there. Lillies are putting out lots of pads but no flowers yet, and whatever was disturbing things appears to have given up and moved on to easier targets, which is a relief.
Potty training with Alex is finally, finally making sense to him and has been really successful this time around, which is huge with the happy and relief and such. Other that that... things are pretty par for the course where he's concerned, some good days and some bad days. I feel like I'm mostly doing a good job as a parent, and try not to let the failures bring me too far down.
I've been really introspective and introverted for a long time now. Things with my mom aren't good; she'd been getting worse before her last chemo, and it didn't seem to help like it usually does, and they didn't bother trying this month. Her Dr's trying to get approval for a different poison in the hopes that it works better, but who knows? In the meantime, seeing her is painful. I try to make the most of the time I have with her, because who knows how long it will last at all, and how long she'll be even this together. Her sense of judgement is far out of whack, and I can see that sometimes she knows it and sometimes she doesn't. I have to talk to her doctor about taking her licence away, and have kind of prepared her for that. We talked again today about the fact that she still needs a second witness' signature for all the power of attorney and final wishes stuff; something that's been ongoing but is clearly on her mind because we both know that it may be needed soon if she doesn't swing back to the slightly-more-normal side of things. We're still struggling with getting her into the system for social security/permanent disability income, which is longer than anticipated, and everything feels like emptying the ocean with a child's pail. I couldn't help but wonder if by the time we get her finances settled if she'll even be able to live the life she is now, with a house and a car and all those normal, taken-for-granted things. When do you make the decision to go to an assisted living kind of situation? She wavers back and forth between capable enough to fake her way through normal society and... well, not. It's so scary, and I worry so much, and strangers go around giving me platitudes about what a nice job I'm doing and how lucky we are to have one another. A year and a half into it, and it still feels like a bad dream sometimes. I'm so much like her in so many ways, and I've seen my own decline, how I lose track of things (and people), how I'm floundering and still putting on her brave face of everything being fine and under control, because I don't know how to do anything else. Most of the time I chalk my faults up to stress, but in my darker moments I wonder if I'm not just following her same path, gradually losing my mind but refusing to admit it and too good at keeping up appearances for anyone to see it.
So, you know... that's kind of been sucking.
On the bright side, I've got two weddings and a slew of birthdays coming up, which is stressful but joyous too. I'll be celebrating a little late this year, with a (hopefully) lovely evening picnic on August 2nd. Official invites to be sent as well, but you know... people can pencil me in on their calendars if they want to. Lots of good social stuff planned; it'll be busy but I'm going to do my best to spend as much quality time with people I care about as I possibly can. There'll be out-of-town family back in the bay area, and budding new friendships to coax and cultivate, and a serious lot of baby/toddler indulgence which is more sweet than bitter these days. And with that, I should be off to bed to get some sleep - naughty cats have been keeping me up a lot lately, so I can use all I can get.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-15 02:25 pm (UTC)Make sure she adds your name to her accounts, general power of attorney are utterly useless at some banks (like Bank of America)
no subject
Date: 2008-07-15 04:01 pm (UTC)And will try to post kitty pictures, honest. He's soooo cute! I've been loving the pictures of your kitten as well :)
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Date: 2008-07-15 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-15 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-15 03:53 pm (UTC)I thought Chloe's birthday was on the 3rd, or do I have it backwards?
no subject
Date: 2008-07-15 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-15 05:01 pm (UTC)