It snowed again yesterday, pretty much all day. And it was cold. So……I stayed in most of the day. My back was killing me, I don’t know why really. I mean it’s leftover from my spinal surgery 18 months ago, but I’m not sure what triggered it this time. But this morning it’s much better, thank goodness.

What’s not better today is that a lower molar broke on me last night as I was going to bed. Big chunk of it. But there is no pain associated with it, for which I’m grateful! There are dentists in Littleton (where son lives) in my network. I plan to call them this morning and see if I can get an appt for a temporary crown or something to get me by til I get home. Bruce is going to stop at a drugstore and get me a temporary filler in case I can use one.

Little Lucian is settling into his own rhythm of nursing, sleeping, pooping and being awake. He looks so much like his big sister its uncanny. But I see signs of my son, like his nose and perhaps cheekbones, but it’s way too early to say who he looks like. He’s just so tiny. My son was never that little, though I think a lot of babies are. I just adore him. He fits between my son’s hand and elbow, resulting in us calling him a football.

Bruce and I watched hockey last night, the Lightning vs the NJ Devils, and Dan watched it from St. Pete so we were texting during the game too. Lightning won, only by one goal. It was a really good game. Fun to watch it with my son. It’s been awhile. I bought dinner by Doordash for us all. I had planned to make some chicken fingers but after sitting out on the counter all day, the chicken still wasn’t thawed. So I bought dinner, and saved the chicken for tonight.

Today I’m going to try to get the house somewhat picked up, maybe do some baking. I slept really well, despite the tooth. Thank goodness.

I have found myself occasionally getting homesick for my life back home. But honestly, since I hadn’t seen son or his family in about 2 years, it’s really nice to have a long stay with them. I know what they have now, and understand their lifestyle better, and will be able to buy them things they need when the occasion arises. So it’s all good, and I know the next 3 ½ weeks will fly by, faster than I want them to.

I’m very proud of my son, to put together buying this house, getting a job that can support him and Dez while she’s on maternity leave, and for being such a good father, and partner. His family comes first and that’s such a pleasure to see.

And so it goes…all is well. Except the tooth, lol. But no matter. Love and light to all.

He’s here. My grandson made his debut on January 21 at 6:21 in the morning. He weighed 6 lbs 6 oz, 19.5” long, and a ton of gorgeous dark hair. I am so in love with him. His name is Lucian It’s been an experience to be around a baby that is so tiny. My son, his father, was one ounce short of 11 lbs, he was never this small. So my experience was very different with a newborn. Lucian looks just like his older sister. I couldn’t be with him for the birth, nor could his big sister, due to Covid.

They went to the dr on Thursday morning. They had a team of midwives, not an OBGYN. Her blood pressure was elevated, so they ran a couple tests and diagnosed her with preeclampsia, though it was fairly mild. They came home as they waited for test results but when they got them, were told to come back to the hospital to be induced.

Happily, when they got there, they found she was already in labor, and skipped the pitocin, which is a nightmare to deal with. They gave her something to help her dilate when she got there since she was only at 2 cm, and an epidural at 3 am. Both she and my son got a slight nap then. A couple hours later they checked her again, and she was at 10. They brought the midwife in (hijacked from her spinning class, lol). After pushing for only 25 min Lucian was born.

This tiny adorable little person, He is perfect, this little angel. Love just flooded through me. So much joy and hope came with him. When I told Dan, he just kept saying how much of those 2 things, joy and hope, came with him. Dan is not an overly emotional person, and I was so happy to hear and see that his sentiments were really sincere.

I loved waking his sister, and not saying anything, just showing her the picture of him laying on his mother’s chest. Her eyes were as big as saucers, being awakened from a sound sleep to see her beautiful baby brother. I’ll always remember that moment.

Yesterday, both Bruce and Dez (the mom) needed naps, as they had probably slept about 6-8 hours total in a couple of days. Bruce put on the Bucs football game and sat on the couch talking to me til he fell asleep. I sat in the recliner I bought them, with Lucian in my lap, and he slept through the whole game. Both his parents got the nice naps they sorely needed, and I got some wonderful alone time with the baby. I love watching a baby sleep, especially this one. Easy to think back to my own son’s birth, and all the joy I had then, and have now.

It all went perfectly, at least as well as it could with the shadow of Covid hanging over us. I would have loved to be able to take Ellena to the hospital so we could have met him right when he was born. But Covid. Grrr.

Oh and by the way, I hope I never hear someone tell me they can’t breathe with a mask on. Dez had one on from the moment they walked in the hospital, until she left. She delivered and labored through the mask for 15 hours, only taking it off when she and Bruce were alone. I’m very proud of her.

I’ve been cleaning, vacuuming, cooking, etc. With them all having had the C-word right after Christmas, and Dez being almost 9 months pregnant during that time, they pretty obviously hadn’t been able to do much cleaning and organizing, so I’ve been trying to help out with all that.

I was so sorry to hear that Thich Nhat Hanh died. Then I realized that he died on the day Lucian was born, and all I kept seeing on FB was words from him about there being no death, that spirit just changes form, and I want to think that could be what happened. An amazing man in another form, and a beautiful baby boy. How blessed am I???

Love, light and blessings to all!!

I’m in Colorado at my son’s house, where we are all anxiously awaiting the arrival of my grandson. I got here Tuesday. There is baby stuff all over. Pack and Play, bouncy seat, changing table, etc…It’s been 30 years since I’ve seen all this stuff.

They have a dog and a cat, Obsidian and Onyx respectively. They seem to get along, though Obsidian, the dog, wants to play a lot more than Onyx the cat does. They are so cute, both are a brindle black and brown. The pup is small, only about 20-25 lbs. She never barks unless someone comes to the door. She didn’t bark at me at all, but warmed right up to me. She knows my name, and knew it by the 2^nd day. My son or Dez (the girlfriend) will say “Go see Gramma” and she runs right to me. I told Dan that, and he declared that she was really smart to know my name already.

If I wasn’t so old, lol, someone might think I was the one pregnant, because I have been “nesting”. Every day cleaning like a madwoman, because the baby will be here any minute, and the house got way behind them because they all had Covid after the holidays, and Dez in particular is pretty much tired all the time. Considering she is 38 weeks pregnant, and just had Covid, it’s understandable. But she’s made some good food and is taking good care of the baby.

It’s cold here. Not like New England’s weather this month, but it’s definitely colder than I’m used to. And it’s not that warm in FL, highs in the low 60’s for a couple of days now. But hey, can’t complain. My old friends in CT are really in the deep freeze with wind chills well below freezing. We had one morning that it started out at 9° but warmed up to the mid-40’s. Today it was 60° for an hour or so. But, but, but I don’t like this climate very much. It’s so dry my lips are chapped, my fingertips are cracked and I’m itchy. I’ll take some humidity, which the AC deals with when it’s bad, over having my skin dry and cracked.

I watched the Buccaneers game on Sunday and could see the palm trees waving behind the stadium in the end zone, and got a little homesick. But there’s so much happening here, I wouldn’t miss it for anything. I miss having a car though, because I’m basically stuck in the house all day, which makes me want to do more cleaning. Bruce promised to take me to Trader Joes and a couple other places tomorrow, so I’m looking forward to getting out of the house. It was also Dez’s last day at work today, so we’ll be able to run some errands. Still need a better handle on how to get my granddaughter to school, even though it’s only a couple of miles from here.

It’s really been nice to spend time with all of them, particularly my son, because I hadn’t seen him in 2 years due to Covid. I missed him and his great sense of humor. This will be the longest I’ve seen him for since he moved here and I moved to FL.

So life is awesome. Pretty soon I will have a wonderful new grandson to love (well, I already love him!) Ellena, my awesome granddaughter, is the sweetest 9 year old. She is very artsy, and today she and I colored pictures of mandalas from an adult coloring book. It was just she and I all day, since it was MLK day. I’m really enjoying getting to know her better.

I’m very lucky, and blessed. Love and light to all.

I have a headache. So far in the last few days I’ve had 2 killer headaches, pulled a muscle in my right SI joint, which was, is, my good leg, and for good measure, I had lower GI issues.

Lord.

Before you tell me I better get my butt to the doctor, I will tell you I was just there last week, to discuss with her if there’s an alternative to insulin for me, and to get myself off of a diabetes med which I just found out has a black box warning. And to get some additional physical therapy for my back, which is the lingering issue I have with the whole spinal thing that resulted in surgery 18 months ago. Of course, I didn’t have a headache when I saw my dr., or lower GI stuff, or a pulled muscle. But I digress.

I think all these physical issues are primarily caused by COVID. My son and his family are better, just some lingering stuff like a cough, and exhaustion. And even that wouldn’t be such a big deal except that my grandson is about to join us in a few weeks. So yeah, I’ve been preoccupied with worry. But it’s not just him, it’s flying to CO while we hatch over 1,000,000 new cases a day. I haven’t seen my son for 2 years because I didn’t want to walk through an airport, but now I HAVE to go. I am, somewhere under all this worry, so excited to be there. I wouldn’t miss his birth for anything, which is obvious because I’m going.

But that brings a bunch of other minor stuff to obsess over. Like, I don’t own a winter coat. And I can’t seem to buy one in FL unless I’m willing to pay full price, which I’m not because I will not wear it again after I get home. Unless my son can convince me to go to CO again in the winter. But he might, so I’m leaving the coat I end up with in CO. Then there’s the slight problem I have walking through airports because I can’t really walk very far. However, I’ve been told that I can get on one of those golf car thingys and hitch a ride to baggage claim. My son will meet me there and I’ll be fine.

I also don’t have much in the way of warm clothes. But I bought enough layerable sweaters from Goodwill and from Amazon to get by. Like boots, and a warm robe, and some warm pj’s. And warm slippers.

Now add to this, I am going to be gone more than a month, and that makes me uncomfortable. After 2 years of staying home or at Dan’s, breaking isolation for a very occasional meal out when the Covid numbers were down. Once all my friends were vaccinated and boosted, we kind of thought we were safe and resumed our book club and writers group meetings. Now that we are somewhere around 80,000 cases a day here, we canceled them all again and will have them on Zoom again. Which is kinda nice, I’ll be able to attend if anyone can host the meetings.

Plus one of the lenses in my new glasses is loose, so I need to go get that fixed. Minor, but a hassle.

Then there’s Dan’s 95-year-old mother, whose newest obsession is that when she gets hot or chilly she’s sure she has Covid. Like 5 times a day, she’s calling him telling him in her weakest most frail voice to come over because she has Covid. He walks 80’ to her condo and adjusts the thermostat and Covid amazingly disappears. Please understand that she NEVER goes anywhere, and she’s told all her friends they can’t come over. It’s minor for me, but it’s really hard on Dan. It’s a constant undercurrent of our life together.

So, tonight I am sitting with my headache and realizing that I have let my worries spiral out of control. I’m feeling the physical manifestations of stressing myself out over this amazing gift of a grandson I am about to be given. I need to spend some time in grateful meditation. I need to breathe, in through the nose, out through the mouth. I need to eat good, nourishing food. I need to take a walk or ride the bike at the gym and work up a sweat and get my head into a better place.

If you made it this far as I work through this stuff, I thank you so much. My head already feels better. And I’m breathing.

Love and light everyone.