Rest in Peace Pandora

Last week my dear kitty, Pandora (A.K.A. Kitty Kitty Meow Meow) disappeared for a couple of days. I worried. Cats tend to do this when they are sick or injured. But we found her and she stayed in view. However she had stopped eating and was unable to keep water down. Sadly, I knew her time to leave us had come.

By Saturday she had difficulty moving around as her hind legs started to lose their ability to function. A typical cat, she loved to be where she could be tripped over. As the kitchen is the heart of our home, that was her favorite room in the house. One of her particular spots was on the mat in front of the door. Unable to get out of the way of the door, I gently placed her on a folded towel for some comfort and put her next to the door. I did what I could to make her comfortable. And by Monday night she had passed into whatever world our dear kitties move onto after this one.

Her death was not unexpected. We adopted her from a shelter a year and a half ago. She had been placed in our local PetsMart and we saw her often when we went to buy supplies for the critters we already had. Pandora remained there for quite some time awaiting a family. I began to fear no one would take her because she was elderly and so many people want kittens. Finally Craig and I filled out the paperwork. When we went to pick her up about a week later, we found out she had been adopted and returned several times already. The poor girl!

Given that she was already fourteen or so years old (The paperwork had different ages for her.) I figured she wouldn't be with us more than a couple of more years. I believe that shelter life ages cats faster than life in a loving home. But at least it gives the animals a chance at a loving home. (I am taking a moment to get on my soap box here...) So if you want a pet, please don't purchase one from a store. Go to a local shelter or check the paper for a family giving one away. Pandora was one of many animals I have adopted and I have been happy with each of these pets.

We brought her home where she hid under the sofa for two weeks, only emerging very briefly to use the litter box or get a drink. After this she became accustomed to us and then became very friendly with her new family. We fed her. We snuggled with her. She made her way into our hearts. Though we only had a year and a half with her, she will remain in our memories forever.

We will miss you, Pandora. Rest in Peace.

Battling Perfectionism

Yesterday my husband granted me a "day off." He took care of our baby from feeding to cuddling to changing diapers. He did not ask me to do anything like cook or clean. I got to sleep late, then spend the day playing video games. It was a break from life that I desperately needed.

But what brought me to needing to withdraw from life for a day? The previous few days I had been in a bit of a funk. But I still battled on, washing dishes, caring for the baby, making dinner, and teaching a few music lessons through it all.

It all seemed to have its start on Saturday. My dear Craig came across me indulging in tears of self pity. Here is our conversation:

Craig: Why are you crying?

Me: Because sometimes life is hard.

Craig: My life has never been easier.

Me: (Not out loud, but in my head) Because I've been doing all of the work, you idiot!

If anyone has been watching us, it is true, I have been doing all of the work. But that is not the end of the story. Last night as I came back to reality I asked myself why I have been doing all of the work. Is it because Craig is incapable, unwilling, or something else? He is currently capable and willing. I created the situation in my bid for Perfection. You see, Craig had offered, yes offered, to do the dishes several times the previous week. I declined the offer because I don't like the way he washes dishes. How's that for Perfectionism? Not only did I decline the offer of help, but I did not ask for help with anything else either.

So on Tuesday I found myself in bed late and checking out for the day. Allowing myself such an indulgence is not a problem as long as it only happens once in a while. But I would like for it to come about not as the answer to a Perfectionism induced funk, but from my husband's appreciation for what I do for him and the rest of the family.

What now? I will accept future offers to wash dishes or any other part of the house. It may mean going to another room so that I can not see the suds flying across the room, but that would be just fine. I will also ask for more help from him. Craig is generally very happy to help a person out - especially his wife. He simply needs to know what I need help with. After all, he has yet to learn to read my mind.

Open Letter to President Elect Obama

Dear President Elect Obama,

Congratulations on winning the election. I will be proud to call you my president. There are many things you will be asked to do and for many good reasons by many good people. I would like to add my request to that list.

The situation in the Guantanamo Bay Prison increasingly worries me. I encourage you to keep your campaign promise to get those prisoners trials here in our court system. Recently I heard a news commentator speaking of the fear of some people in the government have about the torture stories that will come out should you allow these people to have their due process under the law. Those tales of torture have become the proverbial elephant in the room. Most of the world is aware of what is going on there, but no one has thus far been willing to acknowledge it.

If we are to heal the rifts in our nation and the rifts between us and the rest of the world, we need to be honest with ourselves and everyone else. We need to acknowledge whatever wrongs have been done to our fellow humans imprisoned in Guantanamo. We need to apologize to those people, their families, and their nations of origin. We need to apologize as a nation.

It does not matter who voiced the orders or who looked away when wrong was being done when we make our apology. (The particular people responsible for unethical decisions ought also to be dealt with but that is not what this letter is about.) We who have had the right to vote into office our elected officials who then hired the rest of the government employees are all to blame. It does not matter if you voted for the administrators directly involved or not. We are a republic with democratically elected people in power. Most of us decided to put them there and that is all that matters.

I am guessing that some of those people truly are criminals that ought to be imprisoned somewhere, but they are also people who deserve the rights we as a nation set forth in our Constitution. To me, it does not matter if a person is a citizen of the U.S. or not. If you are a person, you have certain inalienable rights that we of all nations should respect. One of those rights is the right to a fair and speedy trial. Those souls we have imprisoned in Guantanamo and possibly in other locations have yet to be granted that right. I am holding out hope that you will do all in your power to change that situation.

Sincerely,
Meghan Hamilton

Blessing my Back

About nine months ago I slipped and fell. It was February. I walked outside without any thought about the fact that it was freezing and hit the stairs outside of my apartment. Literally, I hit the stairs. For several days prior, rain had fallen off and on - mostly on. This particular Saturday the sun shone and I felt like skipping. Okay, maybe not skipping, but it put me in a good mood. So out the door I went, stepped onto icy stairs without even looking, and down on my butt I landed.

Heavily pregnant and due in about eight weeks, I screamed in fright. My dear husband came running to see if I was okay. I sat about a third of the way down the flight of steps out of our second floor apartment and took stock of my body. Everything seemed okay. The baby seemed okay. I had a few scrapes on my hands from trying to catch my fall and a bruise on one arm, but I felt like nothing major had happened. Phew! Having assured Dear Craig that all was well and I was simply shaken up, I proceeded to stand up.

Hmmm. How do I get off of these slippery steps? Finally taking a good hard look around me, I realized that every single one of them had ice on it. What's a big ole preggo mama to do??? There were fewer stairs to go up than to go down. I stood and took one unsteady step up. No good. Too much ice. I sat back down. Aha! I'll go down on my butt. So, one slippy step at a time, I lowered myself down until my feet hit the blessedly dry ground at the bottom. I stood back up and went off to teach a piano lesson.

I pulled up at my student's home and tried to get out of the car. Uh oh. Super stiff body with a giant belly crammed into a compact car. What now? Find a way out of the car. I needed the money from the lesson. Gingerly, I made my way out of the vehicle and up to the door. Somehow I made it through the lesson and back home. Having gone through the same stiff motions to get out of the car once again, I headed for the inside stairs. (We don't usually use them as they go through a Preschool and we don't want to disturb them.)

By this point, I had developed quite a pain in the area of my tailbone. I took some Tylenol and rounded up my husband to do the driving for the rest of the weekend. By Monday the pain was excruciating. Tylenol had no hope of touching it. I called the obstetrician's office to ask about taking something stronger. The answer was, "No and you need to come in today for a fetal stress test and why didn't you call on Saturday when it happened???"

As I had already figured out by my baby's regular movements, he was fine. It was Mommy to Be that had the injury. The doctor narrowed it down to my pelvis. She sent me off to Physical Therapy. The therapist narrowed down the injury to my sacrum and informed me there was not much she could do as my pregnancy was working against me at this stage. I needed to tighten the pelvis back up, but my body was busy loosening it so that the baby could fit through during labor. Great. She did manage to deliver some relief. I was able to sit again without pain even though the discomfort persisted.

Along came the baby via Cesarean section. My stomach was not in particularly stellar shape before I got pregnant. The c-section put it into worse shape. My back ached all the time. Picking up my sweet baby became difficult. I knew the answer would be to exercise. But how? Where? My floor was covered in clutter and pretty icky underneath it. After all, in my exhausted late pregnant and injured state, I had become unable to do any housework. My husband had lost his marbles and was unable to do any housework.

Enter FLYLady. On and off over the past few years I have been using her system to keep the house clean. It was time to get back on. Now I have a clear floor that has seen a vacuum. I can do all of those exercises to strengthen my back and pelvis and whatever else I want to strengthen. One of the many things I love about FLYLady is that she has renamed many activities that often become seen negatively i.e. exercise. She calls it "Blessing Your Heart." Tonight I decided that I would be "Blessing my Back."

Go Me!!!

Size Matters - bath size that is...

Yes Folks! Size Matters! When it comes to a baby's bathtub it does anyway. This is Alex in his brand spanking new bathtub. Previously he cried when given a bath. At first the sound of the water coming out of the faucet scared the heck out of him. By the time he got over his fear of the sound of running water he had grown so much that he was busting out of his space saving fold up tub. So he cried in discomfort.

What is a mommy to do? He is only seven months old. Thus he still needs assistance sitting up. So putting him in the main tub is out. But he is HUGE!!! The kid is growing faster than most weeds. Even a lot of the tubs that are supposedly toddler friendly seemed too little. I looked everywhere there is to look around here. Have you ever shopped for baby products? Some stores simply have too many choices. Other stores don't even carry what you are looking for (see my post on Cute Baby Boy Clothes).

Finally it was back to Kmart. I picked up the one remaining tub on the shelves (Apparently we were not the only people in need of a baby bath tub!). No contours - this seemed like a good thing. It came with toys. Toys are good. It has a non-skid surface to put baby's butt on. Another plus!

As you can see in the picture below, he is eating pancakes. Anyone who has spent time around a child knows that this is a recipe for a big mess. I worried about the ensuing bath, but you can see above that he actually enjoys it now! Splishy Splashy!!!