Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Breaking the News

    Sorry about the late post again folks, this was a very tough week for our family. Ducky's grandfather Pap Pap died. It was not after a long drawn out illness such as cancer, but not quite fast and shocking like from an accident or act of violence. Both have they're own pitfalls. With the lingering death you at least know its coming and get to say good bye. There's no easy way to deal with the loss of a loved one. We personally try to remember all the great moments we've had with the person and celebrate their lives. The loss however brought up several questions you always have to ask yourself.

    The main question is how to broach the subject, which largely depends on the age and maturity level of the child. Ducky is clearly too young to understand death, everything is very now for her. I'm sad because she will never remember her pap pap and she will only how much he loved her from what we tell her. On the other hand, although it sounds cold, I don't have to worry about her grief as well as our own. I do however have to worry about our grief in how it affects her. Our daughter is extraordinarily empathetic, if someone is crying (such as the neighbor when I was re-piercing his ears) she will be as well. When one of us has a random moment when it strikes us that we will never receive a random call that he's around the corner and get out on the porch and let him know we can't show it.

     This also brings up the second major question I had to ask myself, when is it appropriate to take your child to a funeral. I went to my first funeral when I was 6 and I understood I had to be quiet and we were all there to say goodbye to our loved one but I was not ready for the open casket viewing. I thought it was a doll someone had made that looked like her. That wouldn't have been an issue in this case, but I don't think my rambunctious toddler would be able to sit and be quiet through and actual funeral service.

      The third question then becomes what do we do with our children during the viewings, service and burial? So far we have yet to have a "stranger" baby sitter. All of our child care has been a family member or close friend. In the past I stayed home with Ducky but that would not be an option because this time I'm close to the person as well as my husband. We had several offers to watch her if we needed but I still felt awkward because I felt like I would be saying "ok you're not close enough to attend the funeral but close enough I trust you with our child! Congrats on being a second ring friend!". We all know the rings or levels of friendship exist but it's always awkward to acknowledge them. You have the really close friends who might as well be family at this point, the ones that are great friends but don't know everyone in your family, and those friends who know nothing about your family other than they maybe exist.

       The final questions I had to ask myself this week was the dreaded "what if's?". What if one of use dies, what do we want done? Funeral or Cremation? Buried close to our family or where we live now? Ashes kept in an urn or scattered? Who gets Kiernan if something happens to both of us? Who is going to be in charge of handling arrangements if a different one of our loved ones dies?

       In the end however all we're left with are our memories of a man who loved his family. We will be able to tell Ducky about how her Pap Pap used to call us to tell us about every movie he watched. How the man should have floated away with the amount of coffee he drank. We have a few of his belongings we are keeping but she will never understand the hilarity of a man who always got confused with his cell phone but constantly had a blue tooth device on his ear is why we kept it. Hopefully through the family stories she will one day get to know him since she's not going to get to grow up with him here for her.


Sunday, September 9, 2012

Wait, What? Huh? It plays music!

       As I've posted previously one of my main fears with parenting is screwing up. I have studied psychology and child development both prior to thinking about conceiving.  I've also been reading just about everything you can find about parenting toddlers. I know you're not supposed to compare children's development directly to others, and there's no set moment they should just magically develop a skill. The past 2 weeks (sorry I didn't post last weekend we were busy playing). Ducky has helped remind me of this.

See it really is a throne!
        I was off last week for vacation (I think I worked more cleaning and organizing and chasing Ducky than I do at my actual job) so we spent the week working on potty training. To this point Ducky has just assumed that funny plastic chair was just a fun seat/climbing toy. I would sit her down and read her a book, watch tv, play blocks all while sitting on the chair but after 5 minutes with no activity we would abandon the throne (and I would chase after a pant less lightening bolt). She finally actually used it last Monday and I think it was a toss up as to which of us was more excited and surprised by the music issuing forth from the throne! After that she will go once or twice a day so we still have a lot of work to go but we're slowly getting there. I was worried that we were going to have a really hard time getting her potty trained or I was going to make her hate/fear the potty chair. She reminded me just to have patience and while all my friends are posting about how their children are fully potty trained that she'll get there eventually.

       The other way she has reminded me to have patience is with her speech development. I've been worried because other than Momma and Dadda she hadn't mastered many other words than MINE, yeah, and why (I really wish she hadn't learned this one). The only sentences she would use were "I did it!" (normally as she is destroying something) and "No I do it!" (normally when trying to brush her hair/teeth so she really can't). But last week it was like the flood gates opened and actual words poured forth (and wouldn't stop). Her vocabulary has at least tripled and she's using actual sentences now (very short sentences that you can only understand half of but they still count!). She's now fascinated with learning new words by sounding them out, we still have some trouble with frustration when I can't figure out what she wants/needs but we are doing much better now.

         She has given me a new fear this week though. I believe my little bundle of terror has learned/inherited Mommy's obsessive compulsive disorder. So far she has rearranged her bath time supplies by color, her books, tomatoes by size, her blocks by color, and her toys sitting order. Today when we were putting groceries away she was handing me everything and gave me all of one thing before grabbing another even when they were in a different bag and there were still things in the first bag. She then helped me reorganize the fridge. So one fear alleviated and another one initiated. Unfortunately this is how I believe parenting will always be.