The rodent relocation program

We have started a rodent relocation program of sorts in our house. We live in southeastern Pennsylvania and our 200-year-old house is a fond nesting spot for many small creatures. I truly can't stand killing anything (okay, not true, ticks are fair game) so we catch them in traps and release them somewhere far away from our house. Our traps are small grey and plastic- they tip when the mouse goes in shutting the door behind them so I have never had a chance to see what we were catching. When we release them, they don't stick around to be observed. Our gerbil died a while back so my daughter and I got the idea of releasing a prisoner into the gerbil cage to see what we caught. Turned out to be a deer mouse. Mikaela immediately named him (her?) Harry. So for a few days we thought we would watch and check out his antics. As unhomeschoolers we can find nature and science everywhere we turn. We were surprised at how brave he is. He comes right up to the edge of the cage and watches us. He will then perform an array of stunts that include running wildly around the cage and hanging upside down from the bars and then comes back to look at us as if to say, so are you impressed? (Of course he could also be saying Let me out of this freaking cage!) My daughter likes to stuff part of a tissue through the bars at night before she goes to bed to see that he has pulled the whole thing in and shredded it to expand on his nest by morning. So, science aside, we have now grown found of this little guy who seems to perform for us. Although we have signs of spring everywhere we turn (the snowbells are out!) we are wondering if we relocate Harry to a park near us if he will be able to survive and find other deer mice buddies when it is still dipping into the thirties at night. I started to research deer mice on the web and found Rob Sandelin’s nature web site. I’m in love with this guy! His writing is wonderful. I want to follow him around for a while so I can experience all the nature he sees that I surely pass by. When I read his 2005 nature notes about putting a vole in his pant pocket I knew I had found the guy to ask. A guy who puts a vole in his pant pocket might understand our dilemma and have some more info. When I read his 2008 notes about how he held a baby deer mouse in his hands to warm it up, I knew I had the right guy. Below I have copied his field notes that pertain to deer mice. We still had a few more questions so I emailed him. We are also curious about how far an average deer mouse can travel and find his way home. You know where I am going with this one! We love Harry but when we set him free we really don’t want to see him again!



From Northwest Natural History by Rob Sanelin

End of September 2005 field notes
As the nights cool off some of the rodents from outside are keen to find a warmer spot and look for ways to squeeze into your house. House mice are quite numerous and can squeeze into cracks only 1/3 of an inch thick, the only limiting factor they have is how wide their little skull is. House mice and deer mice are prolific breeders, both can have 5 or more litters a year, thus one female might produce 35 or more of her kind. Since both species become sexually mature at about a month old, the mouse math quickly goes exponential. Thankfully, mice are sort of the lunchbox of the predator world and mice can only breed in relation to food supply, which varies.



April 2006 field notes
The first annual broods of deer mice are curled up together, their hairless pink bodies huddled in a mousey ball for warmth. These babies will be out of their grass and moss lined nest in about three weeks, providing food for the variety of predators that depend on their prodigious reproductive rates. At six weeks of age a female can become pregnant, and if she should live so long, she could be a great-great grandmother by fall. Populations of tiny rodents can have a large impact on what kinds of plants might grow in an area. Seedling plants offer high nutritional values and are often primary food resources for rodents. If the rodent population is high, and rodents prefer maple seedlings, then maples may not succeed in getting any of its seedlings large enough to where such predation is less effective. In an enclosure study done on the Olympic Peninsula, Deer mice ate every single Cottonwood and Big-leaf maple seedling in the enclosure. The ebb and flow of populations flux from year to year and decade to decade. So perhaps if owls and weasels decline, the mouse population increases, and maple trees might decline. Or, perhaps the very existence of maple trees is an artifact caused by a temporary population bloom of weasels many years ago which repressed the rodents long enough that the trees could grow beyond their reach. The landscape we see today was shaped by forces of several years ago and we can only guess at why things are the way they are.




April 2008 field notes
The deer mice are having babies and I rescued a mouseling that was wet and cold by putting it in my pocket. The warmth of my hands around it brought it back to alert activity so I set the squirmy tyke down at the edge of the wood, said my goodbye and good luck and then walked a few paces to a sunny spot to sit and listen to birds. I walked back uphill and then felt a tickle on my ear which was my mouse, who had climbed up the back of my coat as I sat. The little mouse was quite fearless and I was sorely tempted to keep it as a pet, but it is often no favor to captivate wild animals, and so I placed my mouse into a pile of Douglas fir cones and then strode quickly away, although I spend the day looking over my shoulder. It’s a big dangerous world for young mice and only a few will make it through the summer.



Deer mouse Peromyscus maniculatus

Identifying Features: Distinct boundary between white underside and brown top, tail white underneath, brown on the top.

This is perhaps one of the most numerous animals in our area, yet few people ever see them. They are found in all habitats from the sandy beaches of the ocean to mountain alpine meadows, although they are most numerous in forests. They eat a wide variety of foods including seeds, fungi, berries, and plant material. They also chew fallen bones, antlers and skulls to get the calcium. Deer mice will have their first brood in February, and a female can breed again within days of giving birth and can have up to 5 litters of young in a year. Each litter is typically 4-5 young but if food resources are plentiful she may have up to 9. Her first litters of young can also have litters in that same year and so if food supplies were without limit, one mouse could produce hundreds.

Deer mice make nests of moss, grass or other soft plant material on dry, well-drained areas. Each nest is only used once then abandoned, and these empty nests are sought after by bumblebee queens in the spring who renovate the mouse nest and use it to raise their own young.

This small animal is a prime food item for all the local predators and they are readily consumed by weasels, hawks, owls, coyotes and even crows.



So I am caught up in the sweet world of nature that Rob has offered to me. I am thinking of The Tale of Despereaux, the heroic mouse that reminds me of Harry…
And then I imagine my sister, Barbara, reading this blog entry with eyes wide with the fear of germs, diseases. Am I crazy? Yes I might be. So I type in a google search for Deer Mice and immediately an option comes up for Deer Mice Diseases that I had previously ignored. I was thinking about ticks and how baby ticks feast on mice first and then grow to more ambitious meals of deer and us. This site doesn’t even mention ticks. Suddenly the world Rob has created transforms into a much more ominous vision with none of Rob’s writing flair.

First some mouse facts from Pest Control Canada


Mouse Facts

* Mice travel over their entire territory daily, investigating each change or new object that may be placed there.
* Mice have poor vision, hence their activity patterns rely heavily on smell, taste, touch, and hearing.
* Mice use the long sensitive whiskers near the nose and hairs on the body as tactile sensors. The whiskers and hairs enable the mouse to travel in the dark, adjacent to walls in burrows.
* Mice also have an excellent sense of balance, enabling them to walk along telephone wires, ropes and similar thin objects.
* Mice are excellent jumpers, capable of leaping at least 12 inches vertically.
* Mice can jump against a flat vertical surface using it as a spring board to gain additional height.
* They can run up almost any vertical surface; wood, brick, weathered sheet metal, cables, etc.
* They can easily travel for some distance hanging upside down.
* Although they are good swimmers, mice tend to take to water only if left with no other alternative.
* Mice are basically nocturnal in nature.
* House mice breed throughout the year and can become pregnant within 48 hours of producing a litter.
* There are usually about 6 mice to a litter and females may produce as many as ten litters (about 50 young) per year.
* It takes 18 to 21 days for gestation, and 35 days for a mouse to mature. Most mice live anywhere from 15 to 18 months.
* They make their nests out of the same types of soft materials as rats, and as many as 3 females may use the same nest.
* They commonly nest in insulation in attics, also in stoves and under refrigerators.
* Mice do not travel far from their nest, about 12 to 20 feet.

This would explain how they mange to around in my kitchen.

And then they share the dangers of feeding the birds (Is nothing safe?):

The most common rodent attractant in urban locations is wild bird seed. Once a constant food source has been detected, rodents will leave pheromone trails for their family members to follow. This could result in a large populations being attracted to your home or business. An abundant supply of food will also speed up their reproductive cycle. Most people who feed wild birds don't realize they are probably feeding more rodents than birds. Pet food, grass seed and poorly stored human food are other attractants.

And it gets worse. Ewww:

* In six months, one pair of mice can eat about 4 pounds of food and during that period produce some 18,000 fecal droppings.
* Deer mice are a primary vector of Hantaviral infections which cause hemorrhagic fevers.
* Mice may infect food with their droppings transmitting such organisms as salmonella and the microscopic eggs of tapeworms.
* Mice transmit disease in a number of ways including biting, infecting human food with their droppings or urine, indirectly via the dog or cat and bloodsucking insects.

The most common way mice transmit disease organisms is by contaminating food with their droppings and/or urine. The most threatening organism spread by mice is Salmonella, a cause of food poisoning, spread via droppings. Other transmittable organisms include tapeworms via droppings, rat-bite fever via bites, infectious jaundice/leptospirosis/Weil’s Disease via urine in food or water, a fungus disease (Favus) of the scalp either by direct contact or indirectly via cats, plague and murine typhus via fleas, Rickettsial pox via the mite Liponyssoides sanguineus (Hirst), lymphocytic choriomeningitis via droppings, and possibly poliomyelitis (polio). Another problem is house mouse mite dermatitis which is caused by these mites when they feed on humans.


Harry is not looking as cute as he was before. And now they ruin the happy thoughts I have about our rodent relocation program by sharing that deer mice have an incredible ability to track back to their nest and can travel very large distances to do so. They conducted a large study tracking mice that they captured and released:


50% of deer mice in that study returned to their home sites (a short-grass prairie habitat).

The mice traveled 650 m to 1,980 m (mean 1,500 m) and had to cross a river and pass optimal habitat patches to reach their home sites. Deer mice with previous homing experience were more successful in returning home (100%) than inexperienced mice (60%) and faster in doing so. Teferi and Millar suggest that these deer mice were able to navigate in a direct route to their home sites. We released mice in locations where they had no direct route to the house; they had to follow a winding road, climb over rocky outcroppings nearly 17 m high, or otherwise surmount obstacles and dangers, such as predators.

Perhaps I should have the Damn Husband release Harry in Chester on his way to work. The country mouse visits the urban enclave.
Poor Harry

Signs of Spring

Mikaela is feeling better and we went out in our yard looking for signs of Spring. They were everywhere! Some sneaking out of remaining patches of snow.







Building Spring fairy houses


For Nigel, it is all new and exciting. This is his first chance to explore outside.

He loves the taste of Spring!

A Thousand Dollars a Day

Spending virtual money for prosperity. For more info on this see the first A Thousand Dollars a Day blog post.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday

A party for all the people that helped us make our adoption possible. Let's celebrate!

$640.00 airline tickets for Kris and Bill
$300 Temenos day rental
$100 travel gas for Colleen
$2550 catering for 85 people
$410 party favors

Kris and Bill for making it possible
Barb for everything. And everything and more. Mikaela is looking forward to another Vacation Barb week when we return to Ethiopia.
Elizabeth for all her help. Without your Sunday visits I would need a dribble cup. You have done so much for us.
Nigel has a place to play thanks to Lisa D and Megan B. They also created a safe haven for Mikaela on the third floor away from her drooling, crying brother. This was no easy feat! My third floor was scarey!! How did you manage to be so brave? Megan came over to help me pack up the donations a few days before we left. She was patient with me when I stood in the middle of the room and just stared because I couldn't think of what to do next. Why was she cleaning out my refrigerator? Because she invited friends over who arrived with food to freeze and helped me celebrate. Megan, thank you also for romping with Wanda while we were gone and for fixing my high chair. Thanks for the baby gifts and frozen food and friendship Lisa D, Lisa C, Kelly, Megan and Colleen.
Lisa C for the hat and for giving me the great baby clothes from her boys. What would I do without the little leather shoes that he wears every day? The head yurt you knitted Nigel is awesome. He looks so cute in it. And his jumpy swing- he loves it and I love it because it means I can get five minutes in the bathroom without him trying to eat the cat litter.
Thanks for the great food deliveries: Marie (Goodwin), Marie (Gabelburger), Amy, Lydia, Stacey, Lisa H., Nikki G., Debi R., Kristen, Andrea, and Paige
Thanks Bonnie for arranging the food chain.
Colleen, thanks for being there when I needed you and thanks for the baby clothes.
Michele, thanks for the clothes for Nigel to grow into.

Be Careful What You Ask For

A blur of sick days, one blending into the next.
In one of my last posts I said I wish someone would take away all my needs so I could parent more effectively. My sweet girl is sick, sick, sick, scary sick, can’t keep anything down fever sick…and I got what I wanted but this wasn’t what I meant. My needs have all disappeared except for the need to see her get better. At first we thought she had the flu. She has never been sick for more than 24 hours before. Michael has Nigel and I spent the day snuggled down with Mikaela and lightly rubbing her forehead. For me this is the ultimate in health care. I fault my mother for many things but what she got right was how she cared for us when we were sick. There was something about seeing us down and hurting that softened her heart. I can remember the feel of her cool hand rubbing my forehead and saying, I would take this sickness away if I could. Flat, warm coke with a bendy straw, cinnamon toast cut into triangles and ice chips chopped in great grandma’s yellow aluminum ice grinder. These were the cure-alls of my youth. I rub Mikaela’s forehead. She can’t keep water down so the other remedies are useless.

Sunday
She is on day 7 of being sick. Truly, this is ‘normal’ flu period, it just feels like she has been sick for weeks.
In the morning I take Nigel to Temenos where my friend Elizabeth planned a baby blessing for Nigel. Mikaela was supposed to present him, but they were stuck with just me. It was very sweet. I am always touched with the questions children have about adoption. They are so curious and so honest. Nigel was the model baby for the event. When I arrived he stared at everyone with his big eyes and clutched on to me from the safety of the sling. During the children’s talk he showed them all his tricks- he smiled, stood up on his own, waved and managed to grab a tambourine from under the alter and start banging on it. After that he fell asleep and looked adorable during the rest of the service. Elizabeth’s talk was about personal trajectories and involved the reading of many of my favorite poets. Thank you Elizabeth for giving me a break from the infirmary and reminding me of how much I love poetry.
Back at home things were escalating. Mikaela still could not keep anything down.

Hours pass and I watch her sleep. She is so hot and dry to the touch. Everything stops. I have nothing to do except for Mikaela. Nothing else matters. I don’t want to be sick, she moans. Mikaela, instead of saying what you don’t want, try saying what you do want. Try I want to feel good. She pulls the covers over her head. Later I hear her whisper, I want to feel better. My sister calls and is increasingly nervous about Mikaela and keeps talking about the big snowstorm that is coming, how we will not be able to go to the hospital in the storm. She is encouraging me to take her to the ER right now. I frantically call friends for advice, for homeopathic remedies for something to make this turn around. I try several remedies. I spoon feed her raw honey in water. It comes right back up. I rub her belly. My pink hand on her yellow belly. I cover us both with the comforter and watch her sleep. Please get better. My mind won’t shut off. I haven’t seen my father in a week. I get a call each morning from his private duty nurse telling me how his night was. It is not enough, but there is not enough of me to go around. I have spent almost no time with Nigel. He has gotten only Daddy time, which is probably okay and needed also. My house is in whatever state it is in, extreme disarray, and I don’t care. A young person at OC has died ‘suddenly and accidentally'. I can only think of the precarious balance of life. I rub Mikaela’s forehead and cannot even imagine losing her. The world feels like a dangerous and ominous place. suddenly and accidentally. Tragedy is lurking in every corner and I feel scared and can’t sleep. suddenly and accidentally. I check on everyone. Michael is asleep, Nigel is snoring, Mikaela is hot but sleeping. I let Wanda out and stare at the snow falling. suddenly and accidentally.
In our little world it is just the two of us. Warm bodies meeting. I try to send Mikaela healing love and her little body works to beat this.

Monday
She is worse and weaker. We head to the ER. The snow is not so bad, just enough to make the whole experience feel so surreal. Mikaela begs not to go, cries and falls asleep in the car. I carry her into the ER and Mikaela has Nigel in the Ergo and goes to fill out the paperwork. I am overwhelmed with feeling responsible. As though she can sense this she says, It’s my fault I am sick. I tell her no, no way, this is not your fault. She won’t explain her thinking. Several hours later after IV fluids, she is a new girl. She is hungry for the first time in a week and has half a soft pretzel that my sister brings her. Before we leave she asks if she can walk in circles.

Tuesday
She is back to not eating anything because her tummy hurts. Thankfully she is drinking and keeping it down.
When is my Pony Package EVER going to get here? Mikaela laments at seeing an empty mailbox again. Anyone who knows Mikaela knows she is crazy for horses. Her generous Aunt Kris gave her a monthly subscription for a Pony Package that sends chapter books, horse kitsch and posters. She loves it. Each time she gets it she curls up with the books and doesn’t resurface until they are finished.
It feels like I haven’t been able to gallop for years! she says.
I know baby, it is hard to be sick for so long. My daughter often spends half her day on all fours. Mom, I am a falabella with one white sock and a star on my forehead. Sometimes she is a different horse each hour. Nigel is often her little foal who is 'an hour or a minute old.'

Wednesday
The fever comes and goes. It is a slow recovery. I wish we had Heidi or Mary Poppins, Mikaela tells me. I want to watch something sweet. We settle for the first half of The Sound of Music.

Thursday
She is still sick but today ate breakfast for the first time. We are going uphill now, a little better each day. We are like bears hibernating away from the world. We nap together several times a day, Mikaela, Nigel and I curled up together. This afternoon I wake up to Mikaela gently rubbing her hand across my forehead. I am feeling better she tells me and smiles.

Friday
I hear Mikaela upstairs waking up with Michael and Nigel. She is WHINNYING!! The gallop can't be far away.

A Thousand Dollars a Day

Friday morning the Damn Husband came down the stairs and was shuffling through the drawers looking for scissors and glue. Are you making me a valentine, I joked. No, he answered I am making you a thousand dollars to spend. It is an Abraham thing, he explained. He had just listened to one of the Abraham CD’s about money. For days now (weeks, months, years..) Michael and I have been discussing money, our thoughts around it, our lack of it and ways we can change our thinking about it and our relationship with it that will hopefully ultimately affect the poverty cycle we find ourselves in. So, the universe gives us what we ask for- the Law of Attraction. So if we are constantly feeling we don’t have enough then that is what we are attracting. And that is definitely what we have been attracting. To turn this around we need to imagine ourselves from a different perspective. The Damn Husband gives me a Xeroxed copy of a thousand dollar bill he has carefully glued together. Spend it any way you like he tells me. So, I am imagining having money, spending money and creating a different reality about money. One that works for me. I am attracting more money into my life everyday. What fun. Here is how I spend my virtual thousand dollars every day.

Friday

$180.00 6 new black turtlenecks from LL Bean
$240.00 6 button down LL Bean shirts (2 white, one blue, one pink, one
striped)
$40.00 IKEA enameled cast iron pot with lid
$10.00 IKEA oiled cast iron frying pan\
$80.00 IKEA white wicker desk chair
$349.00 IKEA wooden wardrobe for the mudroom
$50.00 Takeout sushi deluxe
$50.00 Massage for Barb

Saturday

$900.00 Bosch Dishwasher (I am ready to break this cycle. I have never owned a dishwasher and frankly, it is time. I will soon have three kids. I am tired of fishing through cold dishwater to find a baby spoon because there are no more left in the drawer. I am tired of washing dishes by hand, or not washing dishes by hand and having them pile up in the sink. The Damn Husband does not do dishes. I can convince him of many household chores but not dishes.

$14.00 The Presence Process: A Healing Journey into Present Momement Awareness by Michael Brown recommended by Gina Marks
$86.00 Translation and sending a very special package to Ethiopia

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

$2800.00 17 inch Mac Book Pro with eight hour battery
$1400.00 In Design Suite
$150.00 Office 2008
$200.00 Aperture 2
$200.00 Donation to Children Creating Bridges
$500.00 Donation to OC
$50.00 massage for Barb

When the Dark Side Rules

I should go climb into a hole and reread Dark Side of the Light Chasers. Tuesday I was Mommy Dearest. It all became a little too much: a sick father who is wasting away, a crazy mother who is torturing us all with her grief, a daughter who has the flu and cries whenever I leave her side and a new baby who still might not love me but freely covers me with bodily fluids of all kinds and can screech at decibels that can cause ear damage. Truly I had forgotten how moist and loud motherhood could be. Perhaps I have also forgotten how hard it can be, how lonely and how thankless at times. The Damn Husband called to tell me he was going to be late from work. Great, no problem, it can’t get worse.
“Are you having a bad day?” He asks with a lot of trepidation. He knew what was coming.

Can someone please remove all of my needs so I can parent more effectively? This will all go much better if you do. How about an instant dose of antidepressants that can turn me into Mary Sunshine for a few hours (or days) until I can find my footing again?

From Amazon.com Review of Dark Side of the Light Chasers:

‘We know the shadow by many names: alter ego, lower self, the dark twin, repressed self, id. Carl Jung once said that the shadow "is the person you would rather not be." But even if you choose to hide your dark side, it will still cast a shadow, according to author Debbie Ford. Rather than reject the seemingly undesirable parts of ourselves, Ford offers advice on how to confront our shadows. Only by owning every aspect of yourself can you achieve harmony and "let your own light shine," she explains. "The purpose of doing shadow work, is to become whole. To end our suffering. To stop hiding ourselves from ourselves. Once we do this we can stop hiding ourselves from the rest of the world."’


I am thinking about the woman who drowned her kids and understanding where her impulse came from.
“How could a mother EVER do that to a poor innocent child” my mother said when she heard the story. She shook her head and patted her chest, “Really, how …could… you… hurt…an innocent…child” said the woman who made welts so deep under my diaper that my older sister said it looked like I had 'OC' for Ocean City, (where we were living) tattooed on my behind. Hello, mom, what is that dark formation lurking behind you? Oh no, you don’t have a shadow. You just have a love for wooden spoon discipline on diaper-aged children.

I see the bad side of me that could so easily go south, but it hasn’t. We are a delicate balance of good and evil. Hello Dark Side, I know you are in there.

I am covered in snot and drool. Nigel screams and uses his hands and feet to push against me so I cannot hold him close. I close my eyes and think of giving him what he wants, of letting go of him- he falls out of my sight and I am free. For a second. Then I open my eyes. Then I softly sing in some obscure tune ‘no mommy won’t be crazy today’ and I place him gentle on the couch and find something to distract him. And it passes and we are all fine. Sometimes a version of this repeats twenty times a day sometimes not at all. I do the same with the damn husband (but I don’t sing him anything afterwards) A thousand times I have pictured smacking him over the head with my heaviest frying pan and watching him bounce around with stars circling him like in an old cartoon, boing boing boing boing boing. The feeling came on yesterday when I asked him to please order a new charger cord for my GPS THAT HE BROKE. The cord connector that joins it to the GPS is bent at a 45-degree angle and will no longer make a connection. He wouldn’t admit that he broke it (for the second time, he already ordered a new one once) and instead argued nonsensically that I broke it by hanging the GPS too high on the car windshield and it had nothing to do with the fact that he shoves it into a small compartment between the seats every time he parks the car because he is constantly paranoid that someone is going to break in and steal it. So, now a day later, I don’t think about the frying pan anymore but I haven’t forgotten that he refused to apologize for making the story up because he was at work and the other guys could hear him talking with me.
Me: You need to admit that this story is BS and you need to apologize.
Him: I will later. (in a casual voice)
ME: You don’t want the guys to hear, do you? Oh yeah, if they were listening I’m sure that story made lots of sense to them. Hanging a GPS cord straight down has often made it spontaneously bend upwards against gravity. I’m sure they've heard other similar stories.
Him: Okay, I will talk to you later.
I groan and push the end button on my cell as hard as I can wishing it made a load sound on the other end. I miss that loud emphatic sound of slamming down a land line phone. So much more satisfying.

I love the story Anne Lamont tells in her book Operating Instruction about not being able to stand her son’s screaming any longer. She thinks about putting him outside on the porch for the night. If he is still there in the morning she will consider it natural selection and bring him inside again. I love that she admits to thinking about this and I laugh because I know she did not do it.

It is when you deny your dark side that the trouble begins:
No, mom, I am not angry with you.
I love every moment of motherhood.
Oh no, I don’t mind, you take it.
I’m sorry I broke the GPS cord, sweetie. I don’t need another one. I’ll use map quest.
It was a big leap in my life when I finally got it about the Buddhist offerings each day to the hungry ghosts. They aren’t wandering around the world; they are inside of us. Here you go guys, a little morsel to keep you at bay, nice little ghosts, stay where you belong.

My mother, wayward priests, the woman who drowned her kids, did they go so far because they felt they were not suppose to have dark feelings and so they denied them? Like a balloon you try to push under the water so no one can see it, it is bound to explode out the moment you get distracted.

I once called a friend after she just had a baby. How is she doing I asked her husband when he answered the phone. Well he replied, she hasn’t held him by one foot and swung him in circles above her head, I think she is doing well. Fifteen years later this story still makes me laugh and the image can instantly change my mood when I become frustrated with my kids.


I don’t hit my children, drown them or swing them above my head. Thinking and doing still remain a world apart. I am doing my best to live my life, feel my feelings, sort out my past and change my current reality. I am imagining my world the way I want it to be and I am walking towards that goal one step at a time with an occasional few steps backwards.


Our answers are always around if we look for them and they come just in time. In an article by Tad Waddington in this month’s Spirituality and Health magazine I am reminded of the story about three bricklayers. The first one was trying to make a buck, the second was building a wall and the third was building a school that would educate children for generations
Same job different perspective. Where have I heard that before?

I am still covered in slime but today I am raising young minds that will change the world.

My Father

Everything good about me comes from my father. For more than an hour I have sat here and it is all I can say. I can’t bear to write details of his hospital stay, the falls that brought him there or the fact that I will be touring nursing homes in a few hours. Sometimes I feel that for my whole life I have loved him too much and I can’t imagine my life without him.
Two pictures of my father after a recent fall.


Always the comedian, he puts up his dukes.

So many Alzheimer victims become violent in the later stages of the disease. Not my pop. He literally doesn’t have it in him. He is truly the kindest person I have ever met. He has never been religious, although he pretended to be ‘for the children’ to please my mother. He told me once that he just lives by the Golden Rule and that is enough for him. And he does. And it is.
The last few days I spend all the time I can, first in the ER and then in his hospital room, juggling my two children in the small spaces and trying to be cheerful. Mikaela loves Popie and was determined to see him yesterday He always makes her laugh. She tries to kiss him goodbye and he looks in the opposite direction and waves. I kept trying to move his head in her direction and he kept saying, even when he was looking right at her, “where did she go?” This makes Mikaela laugh because she thinks he is playing with her. My father loves Nigel, he always calls her a girl, but what can you expect, he raised four girls! My dad tries to pat Nigel on the head, usually misses and pats the air and laughs and says “beep beep”. Nigel laughs and tried to pull off his glasses.
I want to grab hold of my father and say, please, please don’t leave me.