Ocean and Snowman

This evening, while watching television, I happened to see the last part of the movie Moana followed by the beginning of Frozen.

When daughter E and granddaughter ABC lived with us before E’s spousal visa came through for their big move to London, ABC, at two, was just starting to be entranced with watching (parts of) movies. These were two of her favorites, which she called “Ocean” and “Snowman”.

Both movies celebrate love of family, intergenerationally in Moana and between sisters in Frozen. Seeing them tonight reminds me of how desperately I miss seeing E and ABC and how much I want to meet new granddaughter JG.

When E and ABC left for London almost a year ago, we had assumed that we would be able to visit several times a year. My spouse B, younger daughter T, and I did visit in December. (There are posts about the trip that you can find in the archive in late January into March. It took a long time to get the posts together.) We had hoped to visit again in the spring and then in the summer when the baby was due to arrive, but COVID intervened, so we haven’t seen them yet in 2020, other than on screen.

Most days, I can manage the distance, but, tonight, I could hear the echoes of ABC asking for Ocean or singing about building a snowman and I’m sad.

We do have a visit planned in November, beginning with two weeks in quarantine to be followed by two weeks for visiting under whatever the current UK restrictions are for group size. We are hoping that JG’s baptism will be able to take place while we are there.

Plans are in place, but I’m nervous that travel protocols might change and keep us from seeing them. Meanwhile, we are hoping that people in the US and the UK will be careful about following pandemic control measures so that virus rates stay down and our visit can go forward.

And, people in other countries, I hope you will stay safe, too.

SoCS: E-I-E-I-O

When my granddaughter ABC was living with us, we sang a lot of songs with her, but one of her favorites was “Old McDonald”.

I would often sing it to her when we were trying to get her to sleep. Using it for that purpose, I would try to sing as many verses as possible, and would extend each verse by singing the animals sounds backward in succession.

This was a challenge when you were doing 15 verses or so. In order to keep things, well, in order, I would group the animals and then remember the order within each subgroup.

I’d start with barnyard animals, cows first because she had a book where Old McDonald had a cow. (It was a board book, so only cows.) Then, horse, sheep, pig, sometimes goat, ending with dog and cat, which could be pets or work animals.

Next, I would go on to fowl. Chicken, duck, goose, turkey, sometimes chicks and doves.

E-I-E-I-O!

Then, I would go on to animals that could be wild animals or ones that were part of the farm. Frogs, bees, and sometimes animals that don’t make sounds, like rabbits. (FYI: rabbits go hop, hop here and hop, hop there.)

I could sing continuously for about fifteen minutes, which was usually enough for ABC to drift off to sleep. I’d sometimes back out of the room and close the door still singing.

Ending very quietly e-i-e-i-o…

ABC, who is now living in London, is now heavily into dinosaurs and making what she thinks are dinosaur sounds.

I don’t think Old McDonald had one of those…

E-I-E-I-O!
*****
Please join us for Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays! This week’s prompt was animal sounds. You can find more info here.

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley! https://www.quaintrevival.com/

 

SoCS: when words fail

Today, daughter E and granddaughter ABC arrived in London. E’s spousal visa finally came through, so this was a one-way trip. We are happy that E, L, and ABC will finally be able to live together as a family full-time, but, oh, words can’t adequately express how much we are going to miss having them here with us!
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “oh.” Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2019/10/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-19-19/

SoCS badge by Pamela, at https://achronicalofhope.com/

Visits and baptism

On Sunday, July 16, we celebrated ABC’s baptism.

We were blessed to have L’s mom visiting from the UK. I will call her Lola here, which is Tagalog for grandmother. She was here for a week and a half, during which we gave her as much cuddle time with ABC as possible. When all the necessary documents go through and E and ABC join L in the UK, they will be living with Lola and Lolo (grandfather), so the visit was the beginning of what will be years of cuddling and babysitting.

We were also excited to have daughter T home for a long weekend. Besides meeting her niece for the first time, T also became her baptismal sponsor. T’s own godmother served as a witness by proxy for L’s sister, who will be ABC’s British godmother.

Sorry for all the initials…

The baptism took place after Mass with the deacon, himself a grandfather several times over, presiding. ABC wore the same dress that Nana had bought sixty years ago for my older sister’s baptism, which was also worn by me, my younger sister, and both of my daughters. Here is a picture of all those who have worn this little dress.

Paco was able to come down to church for the baptism, but Nana wasn’t well enough to join us. After the baptism, we convened at Nana and Paco’s apartment for a feast of Filipino food that L and Lola had prepared. Brent and I made pies for dessert. Everything was delicious!

We were very grateful that Lola got to meet Nana and Paco. It felt like they had known each other much longer than a few hours! I love this photo of Nana and Lola.

ABC is blessed to have many people praying for her. There was even a physical reminder of the support of E and L’s parish in Honolulu, where they were married and served in music ministry. The blanket Ada is napping on in this photo was made by a choir member there.

 

SoCS: High/low

Serendipity is a wonderful thing. When I saw Linda’s prompt for this week, I knew I had to take a few moments to post.

My life has been all about highs and lows lately.

There is this post, “High/low“.

And this post, “Low/high“.

And life is continuing in that vein. Baby ABC is thriving, as Nana becomes more tired and weaker. Nana does have some times that are higher energy than others, though, and it is a huge blessing for all of us to be able to visit often. Of course, ABC steals the show whenever she is there!

Everyone needs a high and spending time with a precious new life is one of the best highs there can be.

It makes the lows more bearable.
*****
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is high/low. Join us! Find out how here:  https://lindaghill.com/2017/08/04/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-aug-517/ 

 

health update

I wanted to give you an update on Nana and Baby ABC.

On Friday, Nana was accepted into hospice care. I now that some people are used to thinking of hospice as a last-days-of-life service, but it is really designed to be an integrated care program over the course of what is expected to be a final illness. It is meant to keep the patient comfortable and as engaged as possible for as long as possible, while also helping the family caregivers.

Nana will have regular visits from a nurse/case-manager, personal care aides, and chaplain. A social worker will be available to help with paperwork and recommendations as needed. A volunteer will arrive to keep Nana company while Paco goes off on his weekly trip to Wegman’s grocery store on the bus from their senior living community. More services can be brought in as needed.

In addition to hospice, we have aides coming in at night to assist Nana to keep her safe and so that Paco – and the rest of the family – can sleep without worrying about her.

Nana has improved over the last few days. It turned out that her oxygen machine that she uses when she sleeps was malfunctioning. Now that it has been replaced with a new unit, she is able to sleep longer and better so that she can have more quality time during the day.

Meanwhile, ABC is two and a half weeks old and doing well. She initially had a bit of jaundice, which is not uncommon in babies, especially those who, like her, arrived a bit ahead of schedule. She had light therapy at home which, along with time, took care of it. At her two-week checkup, her weight was a bit above her birth weight and she is now having a growth spurt and nursing frequently.

It is a joy to watch E and L who are wonderful parents, despite being so new to it. B and I love to snuggle and rock our granddaughter and are finding that our long-unused infant-care skills have reappeared readily.

We especially love being able to take ABC to visit Nana and Paco, who love every moment with their great-grandchild, even though she is often napping during visits.

We expect to see a bit more of her (currently) deep blue eyes in the coming weeks.