Update on Dad 9-25-11

Hey, Everybody,

The last two weeks have flown by and it's time for another report on Dad--a short one tonight. My information tonight comes from my sister Martha and from my conversation with Dad tonight.

Martha reported to me that Dad's been changed to a different room, so those of you who visit him, ask someone at the nurse's station where his new room is. Martha also told me that when she and Dave visited Dad and he was so sleepy, it was the night after they'd moved him to his new room, so he may have been extra sleepy because of that.

I had an interesting experience this week--I imagined telling Dad about my first time hosting my grandson's co-op preschool. My daughter, Christine, had found lots of possible activities online, and we decided to put shaving cream on cookie sheets and have the kids try writing letters in the shaving cream. I got everyone seated with a cookie sheet in front of them and a paper towel beside them, and I explained what they were to do and sprayed shaving cream on each cookie sheet. It turned out to be very sticky. As Jeffrey explained it, "My fingers got so big!"--as the shaving cream stuck to them. So they all had a great time playing in the shaving cream, but they didn't really write letters in it, and one paper towel was not nearly enough to clean them up!

I imagined Dad laughing as I told the story--as he would have done in the past. Only today when I was thinking about calling him did I realize I'd just imagined telling him. In my mind we enjoyed the story together so much!

I decided not to tell Dad that story tonight just because it's a bit complicated--but now I wish I had. Instead, I told him that my six-month-old granddaughter started crawling this week. (No reaction.) I said that her parents both have cell phone with cameras, so they were able to whip out their phones and take a video of her first time crawling. "Oh, my!"

I talked a bit more about her crawling without much more response.

Then I told him that Jeffrey and I played ball tonight, and Jeffrey thinks it's hilarious when the ball doesn't bounce to the other person. (No response.) I said that was good because neither of us has very good aim. Dad said, "Well, good for him--and good for you!"

I told Dad that I remembered that Christie was coming for a visit. He hadn't heard who I said and asked me to repeat the name. I did and said, "That will be nice for you, won't it?" Oh, yes."

Then I told him I just wanted to say hi and tell him I love him, and as I started to say that Christine and Michael sent their love, he talked over me, saying, "Well, you know I love you!"

I felt that again I got less response from Dad than in the past but that he did warm up as the conversation went along and that he did show signs of being attentive and aware of at least some of what I was saying. I'm glad it still feels like we're communicating.

Thanks for reading!