Sunday, June 01, 2008

The Birthday Celebration: One Long Day

It's almost one a.m. Boston woke up an hour ago crying and barking with croup. I had observed him with this problem several years ago, so I knew instantly what it was. But how horribly scary for him—to feel he can't get his breath, to feel the pain in his throat. It's fortunate that he's so close to me. If it had been Ridley, I think she would have been very upset to be away from her mother. But he was okay and responsive to my soothing tones trying to help him calm down and get his breath.

It was scary to me as well. I'm trying to take very good care of these children, feeling blessed that their parents allowed me to take them on this trip. They are very precious cargo and I would not ever never want anything bad to happen to them.

As I sit here on the bed, laptop at hand, he has fallen back asleep and his breathing is less labored. Poor little guy.

He and Ridley were wonderful today. We got up and went down to breakfast, then came back to get their suits on and went into the indoor pool. Ridley was following him around the pool, walking rather than swimming. Then she got a step too far and totally panicked. She couldn't feel the bottom and started to flail around. I ran down to the end of the pool and try to get her to kick or dog paddle over to me, but she couldn't be calmed. I stepped out of my shoes, yanked my watch off and jumped in. I had put my bathing suit top under my t-shirt, but had jeans on the bottom. I grabbed her and held her until she realized she was okay. I asked several times what she had been doing and she said, through her tears, "I can't explain it."

I got her back to the shallow end and told her to stay there. She thinks, just because she's the same size as her brother who's 21 months older, that she can do everything he does. And she lives to copy his every word and action. We spent the next half hour, while I kept trying to squeeze water out of my jeans, encouraging her to kick her feet and pull with her hands.

A little after 10:00 we went back to our room, then got ready for the day. Boston wore new navy twill slacks and a Polo striped pique shirt; Ridley wore a darling new black and white checked dress with red floral applique at the hem, and her matching new red sandals. She looked absolutely darling and knew it. We ran to Ingles and picked up balloons for my brother Jerry and a birthday card for the babes to give to their great-grandmother.

Then we went up to Mother's apartment and decorated a little with some party accoutrements my sister-in-law had purchased. The plan was to celebrate Jerry's birthday at the apartment after celebrating Mother's birthday downstairs.

The babes and I got back down to the apartment lobby as Jerry, Jim, Molly and Mother got back from church. We stood around meeting her friends for about 15 minutes and then went through the line for our dinner. Molly had arranged for two long tables to be set up in a small conference room, and we had dinner with the six women she normally eats with and a handful of other friends. Molly asked me to get up and say something, so I reintroduced the family members and said where we lived, and told them we thought mother was precious. There was a loud agreement from everyone as I said that. How nice for Mother to hear how much her friends like her. Then I asked them to sing Happy Birthday while I played. There were lots of cards and lots of flowers. It was a really lovely event, thanks to Molly's planning.

Then we went back to her apartment and surprised Jerry with a little celebration for his 65th birthday. He seemed to enjoy being attended to. After a little while, we walked up to my Aunt Louise's villa. My cousin Bruce's wife, Cindy, was down from Washington for the weekend to attend to Aunt Louise, who is very ill with Parkinson's and other problems. After a visit with Louise, the babes and I walked over to Mother's/my friend Renie's house to see her new Toy Schnauzer puppy.

Back to Mother's to visit for several more hours, then to the cafeteria for dinner, then back to the hotel to collapse.

An enormously successful day.

(Blogger stopped for me on Sunday early morning while I was writing this post. I had no time on Sunday to write, as we went up to the mountains. I'll write more about that tonight. Now it's Monday morning at 6:30. I'm almost dressed, will finish packing, then get the babes up and head to Mother's to say goodbye. It's been a successful trip, but this is one tired grandma!)

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