Mom and Jeff and Dash

Ann found this piece of paper when she was cleaning some of my mother's things this week. She must have written it after she had her brain surgery back in August of 2005, but it was kind of noteworthy for me for a few reasons. One, because it's been a long time since I've seen my mother's handwriting normal. Two, because even in what ends up being a pretty sad note, some of her humor/attitude comes across. For those who can't see the image or read the writing:

messed up at work.

I repeat myself several million times a day.

I can remember some things after the tumor removed -

Will I be this way forever? (probably)

I lose stuff in the house - sometimes I can find

The latest this could have been was early 2006. At that point, she was still at the police station, would have gone back to work from the surgery, and I know things weren't going so hot. I had probably moved out by then.

Ann found it this week when searching for some clothes for Mom and cleaning up her room because we had to admit her to a short term geriatric psych ward to even out her meds and get her back into some sort of livable daily routine again. She started at an adult day care facility three times a week, and within a week of attending she made a really, really bad turn. I don't talk about my mother's situation much these days on the blog or on Facebook or much of anywhere else these days because a) I hate being a burden and b) more importantly, it's just really difficult. It's sad and unfortunate and difficult, and as good as she is with Dash, she's been an absolute beast for a month now, and she wasn't especially pleasant to begin with.

To make a long story incredibly short, she just had this really brutal turn where she would attack my father, kick things, yell incessantly at everyone, wander around screaming how she wants to "go home" (her general "things aren't okay" trigger), and so on. We thought the day care might help things in the sense that she'd see professionals daily and such, and it has, but we also hoped it might even her out a bit when she's home with us. Instead, it coincided with this turn.

Ann's pretty much the main contact with the people there. Every family gets a social worker, and our social worker is especially interested in us because Dash brings Mom to the center with Ann every morning while Dad and I are working. We're effectively the youngest caregivers in the program by a longshot, my mother one of the youngest people there. That we have a baby in the house with a (relatively at 58) young Alzheimer's patient means that there are different issues to worry about, from cleanliness to having a positive atmosphere in the house to simple safety issues in the event Mom gets aggressive. It's a balancing act that they're acutely aware of.

Anyway, we've been dealing with two weeks of Mom at her absolute worst. Her yelling is as such that even Dash is noticing it (but, to the little trooper's credit, never really reacts beyond curiosity), and the medicine that they've been giving her to help with the delusions and the anger and the lack of sleeping simply isn't working. A week from last Tuesday, she was up at 4:30 in the morning trying to figure out what to do (and later got up at 6:00a to yell at the kids at the bus stop), and on Wednesday of this week, was up at 5:30a for good. Since that's when Dash wakes up (and a post about Dash's sleeping habits is coming...eventually), Ann sat with her while I grabbed a few more minutes of sleep. Ann, Mom, and Dash trekked to the center, and Ann laid out the last few weeks to our social worker, and by 3pm that day, I had to make the call to admit her to a short-term psych facility, because the meds aren't working right and the center is concerned for all of us and because we're basically "a family in crisis."

Ouch.

It's been exactly two years since Ann and I moved back home with my parents to help with Mom. It hasn't been easy for a variety of reasons, and some of you know just how bad certain aspects have been across the board, others have merely gotten a hint of my mother and get the basics, and that's fine, too. In a lot of ways, home life is like a prison when you have someone with Alzheimer's. We had to make the call to never leave her home alone shortly after we moved in, and she lost vehicle privileges very shortly after that. It's been a semi-progression ever since, although it's more like a staircase where you have a steady thing and then a major dropoff - one of our doctors at the center described it as such and it fits my mother perfectly. Either way, it means we can't leave the house together without someone else taking Mom, it means keeping one ear to the ground at all times in hopes that she stays in bed after going to sleep, and it means not getting much in the way of restful sleep at night in the event you're asleep and she's not. It means basically everything you do going unnoticed and often punished - you don't get gold stars or compliments for keeping your mother alive, few around you when you're in your 30s fully understand and appreciate the difficulty the situation presents, and my mother basically resented me for it anyway - "why can't I go out on my own," or "where's my car" or anything else. Then it becomes more difficult to bring her places, because people not like her (minority, overweight, older) become things of amusement for her toddler brain with near-elderly experiences. Or you worry about losing her. Or you worry about people taking her friendliness the wrong way. Because, at the root of it, a lot of humanity are jerks about things they don't understand, and that's something she carries with her as much as anything else.

So for two years, we've rarely seen our friends together. We've become detached from a lot of the things and people we love, and now there's a baby. The baby creates the interesting wrinkle for us in that, in a lot of ways, Ann and I have been "parenting" for a couple years now. Cognitively, it's almost as if Mom and Dash are going to pass each other in opposite directions at some point, assuming my mother makes it that long. We've often joked amongst ourselves that Mom is like a toddler that isn't actually learning in many regards. It's not too far from the truth, if you can believe it. Most of our friends are amazingly good about it, and are as helpful as they're able to be, and it's always appreciated even though it's not easy.

So that brings us back to this week. I said in an early entry that being able to take Dash from the nursery was my first "I'm a dad" moment. In a way, having to make the call to put my mother into a short term facility was my first "I'm an adult" moment, and that's with the knowledge that I've gotten married, had multiple mortgages, have a child, and having to make that decision...that's a lot. I can't say I've been the greatest at coping with my mother's illness, but I wasn't at my best this week after that. Having to rush up to the hospital right after work to get everything straightened out, having to be next to someone in the emergency psych area who headbutted his own mother in a fit of rage, then visiting her last night in a ward with people who can't keep their clothes on or seem completely out of it and yet don't seem to be that far off from where my mother is cognitively? That's a punch in the gut. Visiting my mother and having her not seem to care that she's in a psych ward, not especially caring that I'm there, seeming perfectly okay with the situation as a whole because, well, that's about the extent of her coherence? Wow, does that put things into perspective.

So much of how I want to parent Dash comes down to how my mother treated me. She embraced that I was a "little adult" in a lot of ways, encouraging me to try new things and read whatever books I could get my hands on and answer whatever inane questions I had. That my mother was really sharp and bright and with it makes this a lot more difficult, because you can often see flashes of her trying to figure out what's going on in her broken brain. This week, though, was when it really hit me that Dash is never, ever, ever going to know the way my mother was first hand. I always held out hope that she might hold out long enough where they could have a few brief moments, like I did with my Pepere. That's clearly not going to happen, and, given the trajectory of the disease, he might never actually remember her period. All he'll have is our memories - memories Ann never got to make because she was already in weird shape when Ann came around in 2004, and memories I'm desperately clinging to while the thoughts of who she is today melt into the ones I already have. The paper above? It's maybe the saddest thing of her's I've seen since we moved back here, but it really brought back a flood of stuff about Mom that I had forgotten - her little lists, her way of writing things out to figure them out, that there was a time where she was with it enough to actually tell me to live my life and not worry so much about hers.

Mom's in the facility now. She won't be back until Wednesday the earliest, and there's a nagging feeling that she might not be back ever. If she does come back with us, it's becoming quite clear that we're really on borrowed time, and that might not be a bad thing. The doctors at the center have said, in veiled ways, that we might be doing more than what should ever be expected of caregivers period, and it's been implied a few times that her condition two years ago, never mind now, would have qualified her for more help than we're asking for now. But there's a lesson with Mom that also exists as a lesson as a parent for Dash - that the best you can might not be good enough, and even if "not terrific, but competent" keeps someone alive, it might be best for everyone to look around a little differently. Dash is becoming more independent and aware by the moment, and Mom more dangerous. It's not healthy for Dash to be around someone that negative and awful when we have options available to us, and it's not healthy for Mom to be stuck with people who just might not be able to give her what she needs anymore. I don't know, but this week has been a lesson nonetheless - if we would tailor Dash's education, childhood...life to his physical and mental needs, why wouldn't we do the same for Mom.

Until then, we have to keep on keeping on. If my mother's final gift to me is a sense of perspective in how to deal with my own kid, I'm going to do my best to accept it and use it. It's what she would want, after all, even if we're having a good old fashioned cry about it along the way.

Because Six Month Olds Get Real Food

So Dash turned six months old on Sunday. I can't believe it's been a half year already. Ann's big thing was feeding him real person food for the first time. We have...video evidence:


She first tried to heat up small pieces of baked sweet potato. The consistency of sweet potato squicks me out anyway, so I'm not at all shocked that Dash didn't take a liking to it. The simple act of holding the thing alone made him kind of not happy.


So how about mashing them with breast milk. Putting aside the basic discomfort of that mix as a 32 year old adult, and given that he likes putting spoons in his mouth...no, this didn't work, either.


Finally, how about as a popsicle? This went better, mainly because teething children enjoy the cold, but you can still see that the taste didn't really do it for him.

He had some good luck with a frozen apple slice, so it's not a complete loss at this point, but I can't say I'm not completely amused by the whole thing.

5 months down...

TEEF
Some random stuff that I've been sitting on for no good reason.

* Teething is the worst. I always used to get mad at the animals in the house for resorting to simple cries and barks and meows when they've been around human language their entire lives and can't just tell us they need food or want to go out or saw a shadow in the corner. Teething is definitely a traumatic experience for our little guy, and too often it's crying without knowing what to do, and then you have the guilt about giving him baby Tylenol even though it clearly works to help settle him down, and then you realize how silly that is, and yeah.

As seen in the picture above, he got his first two bottom teeth. We had his four month doctor's appointment on a Friday, the pediatrician couldn't find any teeth, but they were there on Saturday. We're...pretty sure his top ones are coming in as well at this point, but for the time being, it's just a lot of whining to go along with his otherwise awesome demeanor.

* This does mean that everything goes into his mouth. As someone who is a compulsive hand-washer, watching my child take anything within arms reach and bring it to his mouth is something that I've had to work on suppressing my gag reflex over. I keep telling myself that it's just a behavior he'll grow out of, and for now he's building up immunities, but seriously, dude, gross. I know you don't know where that's been, but I do.

* Dash's 5 monthaversary was this past week, so we did our normal picture:

As you see, he's now actually noticing the My Favorite Monster that is his comparative example. By month six, I fully expect the photo to be of him devouring the doll's head.

* I went away for the first time from Dash. It's one thing to have Dash go to Maine and know that, at the end of the day, he's three hours away and if something came up that I absolutely needed to be there for, I could drive there. Going to Charlotte for four days was a difficult thing. Not so much while I was there, since I was very busy for most of it, but leaving and coming home? Just brutal. I didn't expect that.

I talked once about how I first knew I was a dad, and those moments come and go a lot, to be honest. I experience the world around me very strangely, and I'm still not really used to this whole father thing. But when I got out of the car at 7:45, and Ann and Dash were sitting in the yard, and Dash saw me get out of the car from 40 feet away and flashed that great, great smile? Might have gotten a little dusty.

The interesting point of Dash's development is here now, where he is super aware and super curious. Everything around him is interesting, is his toy, and should exist in his mouth. That alone is worth the price of admission, to see him notice things for the first time that were previously always there. What's great for me is that we're starting to get into little routines that I'm convinced he can expect. I grab his hands a certain way, and he reacts because he knows I'm about to make him do the cabbage patch. I look at him a certain way and get a little grin from him without even having to say a word. I know what words make him giggle, I know what actions I can do to make him laugh out loud, and he always has the biggest smile for me when he comes into a room I'm in. The hard part of having to deal with a baby that literally just existed to eat and sleep is now over, and we're actually having some fun now. We're not quite at the point where he can sit and read a book without inherently wanting it in his mouth, but we're so much closer. It's great. So great.

My friend Liz came up to visit for a real quick afternoon last week, and she repeated something she's told me a few times when I've talked to her about how I'm always surprised that Dash is so taken with me: "Your his father, of course he likes you." I didn't really get it for a long time, but I'm starting to get it now, and I get to see why parental dynamics happen so much. Ann gets the lion's share of the time with him - she doesn't work, I do. She takes care of Mom as well, I can't do as much. She breastfeeds, I have nothing to offer. I end up being the fun guy who isn't all business and doesn't have the toys, and I think I've fallen into a bit of a groove with him that works for us for the time being. It definitely helps with the parental guilt I tend to have, because it means I'm actually offering him something that he wants. My dynamic with my parents shifted over time - my father was my best friend for a while and Mom split between my brother being the baby/toddler and being the disciplinarian, then my mother and I started clicking really well on that intellectual level and my father took on the more disciplinary role. I can't imagine it was planned out that way, but it was what it was (and probably gives you all a lot of insight as to why this situation with my mother is so difficult for me), and now I see how it's happening with us. No matter how hard you want to balance the two out, things are just going to happen the way they happen. No use fighting it, I guess.

* A final story as this has gone pretty long. We've been trying for months to get my mother into an adult day care program to help take some of the load off and to get her the care we simply can't provide anymore. For the sake of brevity on what's really off-topic for this blog, the idea behind it is obviously to care for those who are ill, but with caregiver burnout in mind because it's cheaper to do a day thing than to do full-time care. It's one of those "why didn't they think of this decades ago" type things, but hey, it's there.

My mother starts that program today, and Ann and Dash are going to drop her off and get a better lay of the land. That part of it is not interesting as much as the part where Ann is really, really excited to take Dash and volunteer at the place with him. The elderly love kids and babies as is, and Dash has proven time and time again that he's a great sport when it comes to large groups and unfamiliar places (as long as the mariachi band isn't too loud), and the idea that one of Ann's first instincts is not only to bring Dash and volunteer a bit, but to be able to instill that sense of care and giving into Dash so early is...well...amazing. For as much as I talk about how much I love Dash, it's really how much more I love Ann. I never knew that the girl I met almost 10 years ago had this much to give to this many people. Other girls would have ran when they saw what they were marrying into with my mother, instead she showers her with love and with water, listen to her incomprehensible conversations and her seemingly coherent narratives, and even decides that she wants to help out when she can at the place we're sending my mother because we're increasingly incapable of helping her ourselves.

I know I'm going to try and be the best dad I can be, because the best mom I could ask for my kid happens to be my kid's mom. She makes me want to be better at it, and makes me want to make sure that Dash gets the life he deserves from parents who want him to be the best he can be. I married up, I lucked out, and not only does my mother and my family win as a result, but I think Dash hit the jackpot.

I'm starting to think he knows it, too.

A Dashypants Photographic Update

Late July/Early August tends to be a bit of a busy time for me with work and getting into the swing of things, and life has been...rather crazy at the Raymond compound. However, I tend to hold back on the pictures, especially on Facebook, so I think I'll toss a bunch in a post here for folks who are looking for an update of sorts since last go 'round.

A friend of Ann's from her old work got Dash an "I Believe" shirt with the Loch Ness Monster on it direct from the Loch. This, of course, requires a silly photoshop job to fully get the entire desired effect.

Posting in part to show off our super awesome solar pants, but also posting in part because Dash is loving sitting in his little chair. He spends a lot of time in these sorts of things, and it's always funny to me to see a baby sitting like a little man.

We chose to pose our child with a sack of potatoes to represent the five pounds he gained between his two month and four month appointments. He's in the 85th percentile for weight, which is ridiculous.

Ann dug out a bunch of my old baby hats and outfits, posing Dash in them while they still fit. This is my favorite...

...this, not so much.

Dash spent some time with his Memere in Maine a few weeks ago, and was on a boat. No dolphins were involved.

Going back to the "my son is a monster of a child" theme, here he is in an outfit designed for nine month olds. He's basically exploding out of it at this point - if he ever goes Baby Hulk on us, it might look cool, though...

While I was away on my business trip, Ann played more dress-up. This picture was emailed to me with the title "Save Me, Daddy."

More dress-up time. This time, it was more just because he's wearing a shirt and pants. I don't know why babies in pants crack me up so much, but they do. It's like the opposite of dog sweaters for me. He's just so happy to be chilling in an outfit he will almost certainly ruin with his poop in a matter of hours.

Mom has been...very difficult as of late, but, for the most part, she still loves her grandson. He gives her a lot more attention in response as well, too, so sometimes it's nice for him to be in his own little world with her and it gives us a couple minutes to breathe.

Weirdly enough, we don't have a ton of pictures of Ann with Dash. This is a new favorite of mine, though. I loved getting this in my email.

Dash has already started teething, and he spends a lot of time being upset about it and making this weird turtle face while he tries to cope. So, naturally, Ann puts him in giant pants and makes him a spectacle. Parents of the year, right here...

We inherited an "Exersaucer" (who names these things, seriously) from my Aunt Mo and Uncle Chickie, and, needless to say, Dash loves it. Except when he hates it because he can't put all the pieces in his mouth.

Sharing because Dash looks ADORABLE in a little tie, but also because Auntie Beth is still improving our lives with a little magic.

I also met author Brandon Mull during my travels last week, and asked him to sign his newest book for Dash. I let Dash have the book when I got home, and it appears that it meets his approval.

Auntie Tiffanie spent some good time with Dash yesterday as well. Dash loves her, she loves Dash, it's all good.

Finally, Dash went to his first wedding yesterday. My good, dear friend Julia got married to her now-husband Jabian, who I don't know well enough but already really, really like. I always talk about how Dash has the best extended unofficial family in the universe, and Auntie Julia and Uncle Jabian are absolutely part of that. We're the luckiest people on the planet.

On Favorite Characters and Unexpected Treasures

About two months ago, one of my favorite children's authors, Bernard Waber, passed away. He was best known for Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, and I wrote a tribute of sorts at another blog I write for because I thought Waber was an immensely cool guy.

Not terribly long after I wrote that, I was contacted by Bernard's daughter, Louisa. We've exchanged some messages back and forth since then, both reminiscing over how great a human being her father was and about Dash in particular. Louisa did something extremely special for us, and sent us an illustration from Bernard's collection. It's an early drawing from Lyle and the Birthday Party, and it's really one of the coolest things I've seen. We immediately framed it and we're going to hang it up in our nursery, but, like Bernard Waber's books, this is the kind of stuff you share, not keep to yourself.

If you're unfamiliar with Lyle, do yourself a favor and check it out. At worst, you'll be paying tribute to a truly good human being, and, at best, you'll get to read an excellent picture book. I really can't wait until Dash is old enough where I can share my experience with Bernard Waber with him and he can understand how special a gift he's got hanging on his wall.

The Glitch in Sleep

The last two weeks have been interesting for us, partially because we're not always the brightest parents, and partially because we are.

One interesting, but not so detailed, point I didn't make last month was about how sleep was hard for Dash. We couldn't quite figure out why - we rarely got full nights out of him as is, and he didn't nap a ton. When we got him down, it was with the yoga ball all bundled up as opposed to an easy peasy put him down type thing.

This is when Ann realized that we were doing it all wrong.

Apparently, babies have very specific sleep cycles. They sleep 45 minutes at a time, usually for two cycles, and then they're up for an hour, except for the 5-7 hours at night. Given that Dash is exclusively breastfed, it means he's up at night more often, but that's not too troubling for Ann. Do you think we figured that out? Of course not! We'll just keep Dash up until he's tired, right? And then toss him in a swing in the same room as us and then be puzzled that his nap is only a half hour long. And then he'll just stay up again, right?! He'll sleep when he's tired!

Ooh, boy, we messed this one up.

I can't remember at this point when or how Ann figured out that we were doing this all wrong, but we immediately moved the swing into his room, set up the monitor, made the room as dark as possible, and started working around that schedule. Dash was like a whole different baby within a day - babbling and cooing and super-active, and hardly fussy at all except when we perhaps kept him up a little too long. At night, he'd sleep-eat on Ann a couple times and it wouldn't be a problem - he effectively sleeps from 8 to 5 at night, which is a huge improvement from keeping him up until 10 or 11 and crossing our fingers that we'd get 6 hours out of him. Ann got to the point where she was mapping his sleep/wake time to the minute, which is both insane and awesome.

Not our best moment.

So, of course, the last three days have been a bit rocky after about 10 days of a really great, solid routine. Ann left me alone with Dash twice, and both times were just strange sleep things that I attributed more to me not being Ann than anything else, but he was a complete and total pain for Ann today, too. She then emails me this, regarding a sleep regression many babies go through once they hit four months, attributing to a shift in sleep cycles (check), more engagement in the world around them (check), and growth spurts (check). I don't know how people parent without an internet to help them out, because this is absolutely ridiculous. I'm positive I'd never have figured this out on my own, and we're actually really on top of things.

So we're already into a new era of sleepytimes for Dashypants, but I'm more confident now than I have been in days that we'll figure it out. The sooner that kid learns how to talk, the better. God knows we're certainly slow on the uptake...

A Dash of Dash a Day: June 30

Last night, at, like, 11, I had a bit of an episode with Ann where I just kind of ranted for a few minutes. Ann and I thrive on our routines, and it was just one of those weeks between the election and dodgeball and Dash not sleeping so well that Ann and I were off, and I felt like everything was disjointed with me and Dash, and it was just a bit of a mess. We worked through it fine, and recalibrated, and all is well in the world, but then I see the picture above where Dash is literally attached at my hip and as happy as he can be, and I wonder why I ever worried to begin with.

This was his face during the highlight of our morning, when Ann went to get a coffee and we just chilled off to the side, while he screamed with delight as I just talked a bunch of nonsense to him and he loved every moment of it. It's moments like the top picture and this one that make me wonder why I worry at all with Dash, because, really, sometimes the best you can is good enough.

I know a lot of good fathers in my life, and I know of a lot of bad ones. I have one friend who's fighting with his ex for as much custody as he can for his kid, and I have another (now former) friend who acts like it's a chore to see his kid once a month and won't even fight for custody. I saw some old friends yesterday with their almost-three-year-old, and the love they both have for their little girl is so obvious, and then there are those people you know that you're shocked the kids are actually surviving from day to day. Ann and I often joke that it's actually not that hard to be a good parent, especially when so many people set the bar so tragically low, but I'm just really, really intent on doing right by Dash as much as I can, as often as I can.

It's funny, because I've always wanted kids, but I was really anxious to actually become a parent. Then I spent seven hours away from the little bugger twice this week and I missed him before even half the day was gone. As low as my parenting self-esteem can get from time to time, I can at least take solace that my less-than-stellar days are still going to end with Dash delighted to see me, at least for now. And I know more difficult days are going to come, when he can communicate with actual words and move around on his own, and beyond. If I'm doing okay at his most helpless, though...

Going into this month-long blog project, I was worried finding thirty things to write about would be difficult. It was and it wasn't, but even the lazier days end up as a piece of a document of his first three months, which I think we'll appreciate more in a decade or so, if not earlier. This is not a sign-off, of course, but maybe a post every week makes more sense than a post every day, too. Thanks for sticking around, in any regard.