59 and Life is Fine

Yesterday I turned 59! (whoa) Allison called me after 11pm the nite before and told me she was making the 3+ hour drive to be with me on my birthday. She's in her first semester of grad school and working and very little time to spare. She arrived after five the next day with indian food for dinner, the ingredients to make choc dipped pretzels, presents, and her little baby siamese Charlie. We spent the evening together, me, amy and al doing what we love to do together: eat, talk, laugh, and watch tv. One of my presents is a very large digital picture frame which she had loaded with over 500 family pictures. We sat for a long time watching a slide show of our family history reminiscing and laughing. more tomorrow.

MORTALITY

In the middle of my sleep last night the number 88 popped into my mind and i associated it with an age that i could possible live to. Then i realized that if that was true, I could have more than 30 years left on this earth. It gave me hope. I've been feeling old lately. Old in terms of how close death could be. Even if i could live till 80 i'd have 20 plus years ahead of me. hmmmm.

It's tuesday 8:30 am. Amy is listening to her book. Her goal is to finish it today. My goal is to make a potroast in my new $4 crockpot from Goodwill. I'm putting off browning it and stinking up the house in the morning. Glad I have a house fan to suck out the smell. lucky me.

happy birthday to Pam my sis in law.

For the Record..........

I freeze when i sit down to write. My mind is going all the time worrying, wishing, hoping, fearing.......about the future. About Amy's future. Mine, too, for that matter. I want to write more.

I read Dream Mom a blog by a single mom of a severely disabled son. Her concerns, her son's declining health, the things she goes thru, the energy she has to have..............all of these things put me to shame. I feel a failure and a wimp.

it has been almost a month since Amy returned home from camp. We're still waiting for word from AID that her new home is ready for her. I don't know what i'll do when they say its ready, tho. I'm dreading her leaving for good. I worry how she'll spend her down time. Will she just sit doing nothing wishing for a different life, wishing to be home? Will the caretaker she has accept cheerfully the task she has ahead of her caring physically for Amy? Will anyone pay attention to her hair and clothes and how she looks in public or will she look like one of any of the disabled people i see sometimes and feel bad for? I know I can't take care Amy anymore physically. I haven't been able to since March actually. Helpers come in three times a day. This is a difficult time for me, perhaps for her. She needs a life of her own tho. Her whole day is spent listening to books on tape with meals and short snipptets of time taken for our interacting and being outside together with the dogs. We don't watch tv in the daytime. That's all i have. Must stop.

STILL LABOR DAY WEEKEND

woopeedo its still the weekend.

Labor Day Weekend

Looks like no one reads my posts which is FINE with me. I have no wisdom to impart and i'm certainly no one who's going to inspire. I don't even want that job. So i feel free to say what i want to say. Its a holiday weekend but one day is the same as the next for me and probably Amy, too. We're here living our lives with pretty much no interaction from the outside world except for our helpers and even that gets old. Amy is going to the mall with her previous bus driver today. I hope i can get someone to lift me onto my bed for that time.....................im done. im bummed.

Title to come later

Yesterday we, my daughter, her dad and I visited the training center/workshop where she will be spending most of her week days when she moves to the group home she has chosen to move to this fall. Words fail me at this point because if anyone reads this blog who has a cognitively disabled child, I might offend them. My child is physically and cognitively disabled also but her IQ is at the high end of the spectrum for those served by the Association for Independent Development, the agency providing her housing and day services. Its as if she is the smartest kid in her class, yet the most physically disabled, and for that reason she is the hardest person for whom to find a job.

I held back tears as we walked thru the job center. It does not seem like the right place for someone like amy to be. It is full of retarded adults who look as tho they have nothing in common with Amy. The work is not suited to amy's ability except for may one job where the guy counted out ten large nails and dropped them into a package. And he was out of work at the time because they had run out of nails. Its called downtime and it looked there was a lot of it at that place.

I laid in bed last nite crying and sick at heart at my daughter's plight. I can't go on right now.