To Calvin, who is ten months old (today)

Ten months old and moving fast!  This time last year we were washing newborn clothing, organizing the nursery, and going for daily walks.  Of course we are still doing those things, but the clothing is much bigger, the nursery much messier, and the walks a lot more fun!  When we had a sneak preview of spring at the beginning of March you really enjoyed spending time outside playing in the driveway, or going for walks and watching the ducks in the nearby pond.  It has been such a joy to watch you discover all these new things!  Everything that is worth talking about you refer to as dadada, except for food, which is more often not called banana.  But for all of this verbal expression you have resisted our attempts to teach you sign language and have only signed dog on rare occasions.  The books all say that you will be more likely to learn the signs for things you like, so it's not surprising that you've tried signing dog first, as you just love all of our pets, but the cat is really your favorite - when you see her you squeal with delight and take off after her as fast as your crawling legs will carry you, and luckily she is a willing participant because you are a quick mover!  It's likely that you won't be crawling that much longer, either.  Over the past month you have shown an eagerness to learn to walk, and we have encouraged you to take some steps while close to us, but in the past week you have started taking a few steps at a time without our presence and encouragement.  Your balance is still a little off, but it won't be long now.

The past month you have been very fun in so many different ways.  You are starting to play with your toys differently:  you know how to put the shapes in the shape sorter, the rings on the pole, and the blocks in a stack;  you will play "catch" by throwing the ball back and forth with mom or dad;  and you really like dropping things.  You have also started mimicking more often and will now do your own version of "sooo big" along wiht us.  You now enjoy being read to, and seem very excited to watch the words and pictures in the book while sitting in our laps.  You laugh and smile more than ever now, though the outside world might never know it—you are always so serious when taking in a new situation!  You are absolutely amazing to us, and we are thankful for you every day.

We remember.

It has been very hard for us to want to update the blog, as though moving Diamond's goodbye entry from the prime spot might take her even farther from us.  It has been a hard week for us, though each day does get better than the last.  We have shared a lot of memories with each other, like the time she broke through the screen door (without her wheels) at the apartment and "ran away" while chasing another dog, and when Cortney finally got to her the man standing nearby was on the phone with the police who were offering to send a patrol car to get us to the vet in a hurry (try explaining over the phone that the dog that just ran away is not injured but paralyzed...).  And we remember all of her antics in the car on our way to California and back (let alone her antics outside of the car on our way to California and back), and the similar antics on our trip to Washington D.C.  We rmemeber her love for tennis balls, rawhides, and neck scratches, and of course the walks around the block, which entailed so much sniffing that we affectionately referred to them as "sniffs" instead of walks.  And as we remember these things, and so very many others, we realize that it is okay to update the blog because clearly she will always be with us in our hearts, and we don't need a blog entry for that.  But we still weren't quite there today, so this is another entry just for Diamond, and tomorrow, maybe, we will move on and write a letter to Calvin, who turned 10 months old today because the world does keep going on, even in the face of grief.

So this is another entry for you, Diamond.  We miss you dearly, we love you still, and we hope you are busy playing soccer just beyond the rainbow bridge. 

 

Saying goodbye.

Today we lost a beloved member of our family when we had to say goodbye to Diamond.  The past couple of weeks have been very difficult for us as we grappled with this decision, but in the end we know that it was the merciful and graceful thing to do;  her physical abilities had declined rapidly in the past few months, as we knew they would some day, and keeping her here with us any longer would have been selfish.
Diamond lived a very long and full life.  When she came into our lives the vets said she would not live more than a year, that her disabilities or our limitations would get in the way.  Since then she celebrated eight birthdays.  There is no way to sum up a life so richly lived, nor describe the courage with which she lived it.  Everything we gave her she gave us back a thousand fold in love.  No amount of time with her could have ever been enough, but we are thankful for the years we had, thankful that she met our son, and thankful for all the love she gave us.  
The vets nine years ago could not have been more wrong when they told us we would not have the strength to care for her special needs.  Keeping her alive was easy, it was letting her go that required all the strength we could carry.

If tears could build a stairway,
and memories were a lane,
I would walk right up to heaven
and bring you home again

 

First steps

He may be good at rolling, he may be good at crawling, but is he good at walking?  Not really.  But he sure is determined about it - he has now started pushing our hands away when we are holding him. Foolhardy? Perhaps.   See for yourself.

Adding spice to our lives

Or at least to Calvin's.  We got tired of always feeding him just plain pureed fruits and vegetables, so we started adding some natural spices for him to try.  We started this afternoon with cinnamon in the applesauce and, though we were nervous about this transition, the introduction went pretty well.  Actually, we aren't at all certain that he cared one bit about the new flavor - he showed no real preference over bites either with or without the spice in them.  Oh well.  In general he seems awfully distracted these days when we are inside, but who can blame him?  Now that he's had a taste of playing outside in the yard and going to watch the ducks at the pond (which he invariably laughs at), why on earth would he want to play inside?  Seriously, the last few days it has really felt like spring, possibly even summer, finally arrived.  Of course, we can't really say "finally arrived," because it's still March and this is still Michigan.  Heck, around here spring can't really be considered late until June, so the recent days of sunny and seventy have been a wonderful treat.  Unfortunately, it looks like we will be saying goodbye to summer and hello to spring over the next week or so, but that was to be expected.  Calvin will just have to go back to being happy with his indoor play.