The favored blankey

Earlier this week when I was changing Sonshine’s diaper just after he woke up, at 5:30am, he decided that he was suddenly very interested in the used poopy diaper. Normally, he ignores his own poop, but that morning he crawled over and stuck his hand in the poop and promptly grabbed his blankey for comfort.

The blankey went into the laundry and was finally washed last night. Don’t worry, Sonshine has a lesser preferred back-up blankey so he didn’t have to go completely without. Being too tired to fold said laundry last night, we brought it up this morning, blankey on top. When we stood Sonshine up against the laundry basket while getting ready to leave this morning, he snatched up that blankey and cuddled with it until we walked out the door and threw the blankey back in the basket.

This evening we returned home and immediately fed our hungry Sonshine. At some point while watching his video after dinner, he managed to snatch the blankey from the laundry basket. I found him laying on the floor, 10 feet from where I had left him, chewing on his blankey and watching his video. I have no idea how he carried the iPhone over the laundry basket and even less of an idea of how he managed to be brave enough to climb the laundry basket to get the blankey out. (The laundry basket remained upright and full, by the way.)

When I found him, I said, “It’s just like when Ellie [our puggle with a food obsession] loses a piece of kibble from her breakfast under the couch and stares at it when we return home in the evening so we can get it out for her…only Sonshine figured out how to get his kibble out.”

I, one, did not know Sonshine could be so attached to an object and, two, had no idea he has such a good memory.

Old toys

The other day while Sonshine was home with a ruptured eardrum, I turned on Netflix to one of his favorite television shows to distract him while I organized some papers. Sonshine was utterly intrigued.

When Sonshine decided to get down from his prime TV viewing position, he knocked down his old gPECS, which had pictures of all his favorite toys. One of the toys pictured was particularly obnoxious, playing 5 minutes of song after the slightest bump. So, I put it away months ago, only pulling it out for vacations.

Sonshine flipped through all the gPECS and pulled out the picture of that annoying toy. He just sat and stared at it, pointing to all his favorite buttons. I had no choice but to pull the toy out of storage for him. After all, he asked for it.

And, boy, was he happy when he saw that toy.

(I put the toy back away after that afternoon. Still can’t stand it.)

It only took 3 minutes…

Sonshine stood at the living room table watching cartoons on my iPhone. The land line was also sitting on the table. This is what happened.

No love for sonshine

*This post is completely irrelevant to the life of Sonshine so if you are looking for astonishing cuteness, read no further.*

This blog certainly has seen its share of neglect over the last couple of weeks, mostly because of the end of my first rotation block and a last-minute trip to midwest to visit my ailing Gramps. I could have done without the day of air travel followed by the 6 hour drive with my mom to Gramps’ rural Arkansas home. We arrived just in time to turn around and do all of it again in 36 hours. But, I’m glad I made it when I did. Gramps still had enough energy to talk politics and reminisce with us, Skype with the great grandkids, and discipline the dog, an 80 lb pit-boxer mix that lives on the porch whom I very appropriately nicknamed Tank. Mom and Tank seriously bonded during our trip.

Who wouldn’t love this face? Especially when he’s charging at you at full speed hoping for a new play buddy.

The last time I spent any significant amount of time at Gramps’ house was back in high school when I spent a week or so with him in Arkansas just before a big family reunion. We spent our days playing tennis and “jamming,” him with his clarinet and me with my new saxophone, which I didn’t know how to play. No matter though; we didn’t have an audience.

Being a teenager, all I wanted to do that summer was sleep and watch TV. Gramps would have none of it though. When he decided he wanted me to wake up, he would passive aggressively sit outside my bedroom door and play his clarinet until I could no longer bear the squeakiness of that woodwind instrument. And when all I wanted was to watch that one TV show, he would drag me out to the tennis courts and invariably beat me, despite the 60 year age difference.

Just before the big family reunion, my cousins came to sleep over and hang out with us. The privacy of my own bedroom was replaced with a cot underneath the stairwell, right next to the gun display. I spent those two nights clutching the blankets to my chest hoping the rifles would not fall out of the glass case and accidentally put a bullet in the opposite wall.

Despite my somewhat mixed feelings about staying in rural Arkansas for part of my summer vacation as a teenager, I was happy to return to visit Gramps. Somehow, the space has changed over the years. Instead of seeing a sleepy town middle of nowhere, I saw warmth and beauty in the quietness.

The week before we arrived, Gramps was enrolled in a hospice program. With the program he is allowed all the comfort measures of palliative care combined with the newest cancer treatment drugs. Gramps wasn’t up for eating much so mostly we spent time talking and visiting with Gramps around his nap schedule. Tom and Sonshine would drop everything at a moment’s notice just to Skype with Gramps. We also helped move furniture to allow room for a wheelchair to manipulate around the house.

After we got back to my Mom’s house, we treated ourselves to a slightly late Mother’s Day dinner at a fancy steakhouse.

Tom was a little jealous of missing out on the steak, but was happy to have me back just in time to take Sonshine to the doctor yesterday for the newest ear infection and ruptured eardrum. The next rotation starts on Monday…

Sailboats

Another beautiful weekend, another day trip.

More pictures to come…