grow older better

Tag: children

  • Birthday Thoughts [for our adult kids]

    newborn

    35 years ago, at 3:55AM in Boston Massachusetts, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy!

    Then, about 20+ years ago, when he was a teenager, we went to see City Slickers.

    There is a scene where Billy Crystal is awoken at 5:16AM by his mother who reminisces about his birth.

    She does this every year – and Billy Crystal mouths her exact words as she says them.

    “Oh no” said my son, “I can see it now!”

    Well – I never did start the reminiscing calls – because for one thing – 3:55AM and I have become strangers in these 35 years. But it keeps him wondering if I will!

    But I can schedule this to appear at 3:55AM EDT 🙄

    And for most of his birthdays, he calls me and says…”yes, mom, you HAVE aged [whatever age he is] years…because I tend to say how can you be [x age] when I have not aged that many years….

    happy birthday

    Do you have a birthday custom that has gone on as your kids grew into adulthood?

     

    Please comment below and thank you.

  • On a dog dying

    Sam - a dog who is missed

    Sam – a dog who is missed / photo by Lynn Dorman

    Sam is a Malamutt I adopted almost 8 years ago – when he was about 2 1/2 years old.  He had a different name when I adopted him but within a short time he seemed liked a Sam and he loved the name.  So Sam he became!

    We moved to Portland almost 7 years ago and it was a perfect spot for him: dogs, dog parks and dog people…he was in heaven!

    This summer, soon after he turned 11, he started fading.  At first I thought it was the heat [he and I don’t “do” heat very well] but he never really perked up as we went into late August – and then he went on a steady decline.

     

    It was hard on me and I spent a lot of time just being with him. I made him special meals and sat with him as he ate.  His legs had trouble holding up his 120 pounds so he ate more when lying down.

     

    For a dog who never met a food he did not like it was sad to see him not want to eat much of anything.

     

    His systems were all still working and up to his last few days, he was still able to walk ever so slowly up the ramp to the road.  But there came a day he could not longer do that.

     

    I won’t go into detail here about his last few days, and our conversations, but I will offer some insights I have had in the almost 3 weeks since he died and why his death has been harder than the death of other dogs.

     

    As an adult, I have had a dog or two and/or a child around for over 40 years.  I got my first dog when I was about 29 and so I have had a dog or my son to care for [or need me] since then.

    With Sam’s death I realized this is the first time since I was 29 that I don’t have a dog or child in the house!  It’s like I have nothing to “take care of.”

     

    Yes I have a cat, and for about 2 weeks after Sam died, she hung around the house and the moorage – but now she is back to being a cat.  She stays out all day and sometimes all night.  And like a cat, she is affectionate only when she wants to be – not like Sam who just loved people watching and being patted.

     

    And for now, I am taking care of me.  I can work, travel and do things without having to go home to feed and walk a dog or call my friend to do that for me. 

     

    It’s hard at times, but I am beginning to enjoy a real empty nest.

     

    Comments? Thank you

     

  • Seniors and Children – the targeted populations!

    Yesterday I went to an advocacy planning meeting – for human services in the rough financial seas ahead.

    We heard from groups concerned with or represent children, seniors, the environment, disabilities, the poor and others who rely on the vast social service networks. All these groups have clients who now need services and see their client list growing by the day! In the face of that growing need – we are facing a huge budget deficit here in Oregon and I presume in all 50 sates and the District of Columbia. It is not pretty – in fact it can be depressing ugly – but we know we need to keep looking ahead and being hopeful that a new administration in D.C. will offer some hope and help – but it will not be immediate.

    In bad times more people need social services.
    In bad times governments cut social service funds.

    That’s the ongoing quagmire faced across this country right now!

    Food banks are empty as people who used to donate now need the food themselves.
    Lost jobs means more need food stamps.
    More kids meet the requirement for free school lunch programs and those programs are either even funded or get less money now.
    More seniors need help with food, medicine, emergency money for taxes and utility bills and those funds are the same as in previous years or less – with more people meeting the criteria for those funds.

    Ask your state why is that the most vulnerable among us are the ones who are made more vulnerable in bad financial times? Do we not value our seniors or children? Why are they rarely or never top priority budget items?

    Find out what decisions are being made in your state that affect seniors and children and call your state and federal reps and senators to make your voice heard..

    And get involved with your local advocacy groups…

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,

  • Mother’s Day 2007


    A repeat posting [from Mother’s Day 2006 on my politikal blog] – with a few minor edits
    [cross-posted there today as well]



    How did we get away from the original intent of Howe’s mother’s day proclamation to a now corporate event of sell sell sell and buy buy buy? Oh and do not forget to make those intercepted phone calls….

    I cry for those mommy’s who have lost their children in the mad shrub’s so-called war….

    Let’s take back mother’s day – we started to take back our country from mad king george last Fall – let’s continue to do so….peaceably

    Mother’s Day Proclamation – 1870
    by Julia Ward Howe

    Arise then…women of this day!
    Arise, all women who have hearts!
    Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
    Say firmly:
    “We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
    Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
    For caresses and applause.
    Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
    All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
    We, the women of one country,
    Will be too tender of those of another country
    To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

    From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
    Our own. It says: “Disarm! Disarm!
    The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”
    Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
    Nor violence indicate possession.
    As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
    At the summons of war,
    Let women now leave all that may be left of home
    For a great and earnest day of counsel.
    Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
    Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
    Whereby the great human family can live in peace…
    Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
    But of God –
    In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
    That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
    May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
    And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
    To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
    The amicable settlement of international questions,
    The great and general interests of peace.

    Peace

    glyconutrients, healthy aging, growing older, aging, nutrition, exercise, eating properly,