Lucie and Grandpa

(Lucie going out the door with napkin bits stuck to her face)

Dad spends a lot of time watching my kids in perpetual motion, especially Lucie. I never know what he's thinking as he sees her crawl up onto the island or reach for something from a precarious perch. It's a good thing he can't be a vocal critic of my parenting skills. But maybe he thinks we're all a bunch of hooligans, especially at dinnertime. Lately Lucie has been sitting next to him and his head is always turned in her direction as she stands in her chair while she eats (table manners are not a top priority at this point in time, sorry). I am usually preoccupied with feeding Dad on his other side, and it's hard to compete for his attention with the entertainment Lucie provides. Yesterday I made salmon patties/burgers and she tasted hers, then decided it wasn't for her. "Here, Grahpa", she says as she hands her dinner to Dad. He doesn't often reach out to take things but sometimes he will if something interests him. He took it and probably would have eaten it if he could (can't quite do it without help). But alas, Dad's choices for dinner are limited to liquified things--seems cruel to take it away from him. We try to make him some pretty tasty soups to make up for it.

Then today at dinner Lucie began to cry, "My napkin! My napkin!". Sure enough, Dad had swiped it, probably not realizing it was hers. He was okay with letting us give it back to her.

P. S.

Today Julie the nurse came to check on Dad, and told us he has a partial bowel obstruction, which means he can only have clear liquids for 24 hours or until it clears up. Hope this is a short episode and not at all like his last one which lasted for many months. So, today we fed him juice and red Jello for lunch and dinner. I will have to pick a different color next time because if he doesn't swallow all of it and then if he sort of zones while watching Wallace and Grommit with the kids, it might dribble out again and scare me. While brushing his teeth, he still had some red around his lips and we joked with him that he looked like he just came from the set of a horror movie.

P.P.S.

Dad likes to listen to music, and so I play for him whenever I can. I know he likes something when he laughs or cries while I'm playing. Music helps release his pent-up emotion, the music therapist told me, so it's good for him. Well, yesterday I was only playing scales, but he laughed every time I came to the cadences at the end--it was funny. I didn't know they were that spectacular, but he liked them! Today he laughed during one of Beethoven's Variations, so I played it again for him.