Lately, she has been preferring to cuddle with me laying across me, and looking up into my face, while asking me to sing. This is rather a departure, because for a while she didn't want me to sing for her, and she preferred to cuddle with me face down across my arms. With daddy, she generally cuddles with him with her head on his shoulder. She's very fidgety with me that way, and can't get comfortable until she lays sideways.
I generally sing or hum "Baby Mine" from Dumbo (I think it's particularly sweet, and is easy to hum for longer as needed). I never had occasion to sing any particular lullaby with Maia while she was in utero, I'm hoping that this little June Bug will learn to love this lullaby earlier.
So this evening of cuddling with her "mu-kik" came following a bit of a rough evening. Maia often plays by ringing around my legs, or leaning through them. This evening, however, while leaning through, she let go and fell smack on her nose. I picked her up, and when the screaming started to subside a little, I took a look and saw a nose and mouth full of blood. Alas, trying to convince a 16-month-old that you need her to hold still while you wipe off the blood and see what's wrong... well, that's like trying to put pants on jello.
But after some diligence, I was able to determine that it was just a bloody nose, and she was more than ready to "dit down?" and go play, regardless of her messy face and hands.
So after a little clean up, she sat and read her books for a while.
It's been a full couple of weeks. A full month, really! After running the Holiday Pops gauntlet the first week of December, I was having a quiet night (finally!) at home on Sunday evening when my mother called to advise me of the death of a good family friend, Peggy. Her death was not unexpected, but very sad nonetheless. The world lost a powerful force for peace, and one of the dearest women I had ever met. Her husband, Phil, sings bass in my dad's quartet.
Several hours later, I read a co-worker's status update on facebook, lamenting the loss of the good Dr. G. Dr. G had left the hospital where I work in June of this year, seeking a 3/4 time position in another hospital across town as he wanted some more flexibility and time with his family (who live in California and Hawaii). It took me some time to track down someone who knew what happened. This was a sudden and unexpected loss, and very difficult to wrap our heads around. An active man full of joy, mischief and compassion, he was the one doctor who could always advocate for me, or help me tackle the tough issues in my position. I was so sad when he left, and just could not fathom this turn of events.
On Tuesday the 8th, we had an informal memorial at work to share our memories of him with his family and each other. That was extremely difficult, and touching, even though many stories got us laughing. On the 10th, during a severe winter snow storm (aka, blizzard), a few co-workers and I went to his funeral, in the middle of the work day.
On Saturday the 12th, we assembled at WPC for Peggy's funeral. She was a long-standing choir member, and so the family invited the choir to sing two pieces that Peggy had chosen. My sister, my father and I joined in for that, along with faces we hadn't seen (and voices we hadn't heard) for years and years who returned for this occasion. Peggy's funeral was amazing; in attendance and in stories told, and letters she'd written to her children read aloud.
Then for me, after briefly greeting the family (by cutting into the longest receiving line I'd ever seen at a funeral), I headed home to spend a little time with Maia, and getting ready for my company holiday party. Around 7, Ray got Maia to bed, and Emily came over to read, watch movies and listen for her cries, while Ray and Andrew went Christmas shopping! This was Emily's first time babysitting for Maia while we weren't here (although not the first time babysitting) and she rose to the challenge when Maia woke and wouldn't return to sleep by singing "Twinkle, twinkle little star" to her... which worked!
That evening, the third shoe dropped... I'm sorry to say that they always seem to come in threes The mother of my Aunt Dianne passed away. She was a resident of the senior living center to which Maia's daycare is attached, and was last in our home for Maia's birthday.
Mrs. Jolman was sharp and engaging, and I grew up calling her Grandma Jolman, not fully understanding that just because she was my cousin's grandmother, didn't mean she was mine, too. Her remaining family is spread about, with my cousins living in Lansing (well, that's not that far), and California, and my aunt and uncle living in North Carolina. That being the case, we offered a room (next to a noisy 16-month-old) to my cousins to help defray the expenses... and my cousin Tamara and her husband, Jason, stayed with us over this weekend. Unfortunately, we were hardly able to play good hosts, as there was a child to get to bed on time, and Ray had an overnight mainframe work assignment, which had him working from 2 am to 9 am on Saturday/Sunday morning, leaving him pretty much out of it on Sunday.
In between all of these events, there was Christmas shopping, errand running, cleaning, rearranging, Christmas gift making, and entire day of baking and lots of evenings of complete exhaustion! I think I'm fully ready for the year to be over, already!
My cookies are finished baking, and I still need to wrap presents for my co-workers and Maia's daycare teachers. I realize that this entry was not so much about our immediate family, but these losses were all pretty important to me, both for myself and for people I deeply care about. So it seemed right to share them.
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