I remember this Friday being exhausted. Many nights of poor sleep and I was just hanging on. And so I was thankful for a moment to sit down and relax with Pop and quiet moments experimenting with new art mediums.

Later that evening, I had a most wonderful and needed night with friends. It was good to be out in the world and find my bliss for a few hours.

Our View	Glue Art on wet sand
A most beautiful sunset before a wonderful night out with friends	Pure, much-needed escapism

..and I don’t mean that in the way that every parent thinks there child is an artist. She IS one. If you have ever watched her create, you know. She creates art out of anything and I am constantly blown away. From a very young age, she has made self-directed art projects. She loves to mix colors and make her own. She had a collage phase and a watercolor phase. Now we are in the marker and tempra paint stage (lots of color mixing) She can take trash and turn it into anything. She makes glue art. She experiments. She is always making something.

She is wicked creative and I am learning more and more how to get out of her way and not stifle that. For example, I no longer ask her to NOT mix the watercolor paints in the tray. Now she has free reign to do that.

Recently, she asked me to draw the outline of a cat. I obliged and when I came back, this is what she had made with her markers.

Those diamonds!?! That pattern! Then she asked he to draw a dog outline and did this:

I love the bands of colors. I also find it interesting that they have very vibrant, patterned bodies, yet all black legs. Late that night, she did this free-hand:

She is amazing and I am going to start featuring more of her work here. I keep all their art work and bind them in binders by year. It is so interesting to watch how both their artwork grows.

As far as Quinn goes, I don’t say much about it to her. She just needs to be herself and at this point, art seems to be a large part of who she is. Knowing that, I make sure that outlet is readily available to her and that she has lots of supplies. And I sit back and enjoy watching her express herself and her ideas.

That isn’t to say that they aren’t sometimes chaotic or filled with moments where they are driving me up the wall. It is all there. There are many complete days shall we say. But I love this and I love them being home. Best of all are the moments…

I got to play teacher today and it was so fun! We haven’t gotten into any curriculum work yet and probably won’t until May. However, Tyler has been begging for a science class – he is very fixated on anything fossils and is getting into the notion of artifacts. So I did some reading in a Fossil book we got him and decided to start this week with going into the 3 kinds of rocks.

Today we did sedimentary. I explained a bit about them then asked them to draw layers. Tyler decided they should label their drawings – well, alrighty then, so we did. Finally, we mixed water, epsom salt and sand hoping to make our own sedimentary rocks. The process takes two to three days, so we will have to wait to see if we succeeded.

What I love about doing this at home is the flexibility and the time to explore an idea. Tyler decided he wanted to make another “rock”, but use crystals. Go for it! So he went outside with a hammer and made crystal sediment. We mixed a good bit of that in with the sand and will see what happens.

December was just not a good month for this family and therefore many of the fun craft and gift-making projects I would want to do never happened. We are making up for it this week crafting every day in preparation of Valentine’s Day. Today potato stamps.

Well the carving was hard and Tyler was quickly frustrated. I love how my kids can solve a problem like that. Quinn grabbed the larger cookie cutters that were out, put them on her paper and painted inside the cutter. Tyler did the same thing, but with markers and then expanded on his shape.

As we get farther into this, these are the things I love. That the lines aren’t rigid. That the kids have the freedom to go off in different directions and explore. Interestingly enough, while Tyler did not use the potato stamps I made this day, the next afternoon he wanted to try them out. We got the paints out and he made a few cards with the tulip. There is also the freedom to come back and approach something when they are ready to do so.

From here, Quinn and I continued to do art and Tyler went off to build legos.

Twice a year the Texas Memorial Museum on the UT Campus hosts Identification Day. On this day, archeologists, geologists and paleontologists in the area are on hand to help folks identify items they have collected.

Tyler was very excited about figuring out what some of his fossils were. First though, the day began with some art and family game time. Chris just got the kids a new game called Kids of Carcassonne. Awesome tile laying game – the kids love to play and so do we!

Identification Day!
We headed off to the museum, each kid with their rocks and fossils in tow. It was really fascinating to watch the process of identification. This woman was great with the kids and Tyler in particular. She helped him ID a possum jaw that he had found and also pointed out scratches in other meat bones he had found where small animals were eating off the bone to get their minerals.

I love watching Tyler learn. He came with specific questions. And he wanted that nugget of knowledge. Those would get answered, but more information would come to him. He might look away, but he was listening. He wouldn’t respond much, but all those bits and pieces had gone in and were floating around. After we left, he would slowly integrate all that information and it would come out days later when he was explaining what he had learned another child.

As I move more into a teacher role, I have to remember that. It is all going in even if he doesn’t seem to be paying attention. He needs time and space to integrate it all.

We then went to the archeology table to identify a few articats Tyler had found. I think he is slowly leaning towards this specialty. He is wanting to go on an actual dig badly! Quinn was not an idle participant either. She wanted to know whey there was in a break in one of her rocks, so we asked and she got her answer!

After we were done, we explored other parts of the musem

We headed down to the prehistoric area where all the dinosaur fossils are. In the “lab” area, there was student looking for microfossils in cave sediment. Tyler was fascinated. He could see what the student was looking at through the microscope via a large flat panel screen.

Tyler was enjoying helping the student find some bones. The student got some fossils out for Tyler to identity which was fun. Tyler loved it. He now wants a microscope and the other day was searching through sand using a magnifying glass and tweezers to search for “micro-fossils”.

It is cool to see him to see him so fascinating and drinking in all these experiences and how he integrates what he experiences.

I went to put my Dad to bed Saturday night. First I have to recount this interaction with my kids that made me smile.

Kids and Their Truth and Social Rules

I told them that I would be gone in the evening and that I would be taking care of Pop. That last time when they came it was a bit challenging, so they would stay home with Dad. Tyler cheers, “Hooray, we don’t have to put Pop to bed! We don’t have to go see Pop!” Quinn begins to follow suit and I hear Tyler say, “or, uh, maybe i shouldn’t have said that…”

I just turned around and said, “Tyler, I love you.” I had to visit a Great Grandparent when I was his age and I remember how I didn’t really look forward it. It is hard sometimes for them to visit with someone when it is difficult to connect. And at bedtime, they really can’t do much, but wait. It is much better during the day when they can play catch and such with him. I appreciated that he reflected and realized that maybe he shouldn’t have spoken that truth out loud. There was a window into a growing child figuring out the social rules.

So This is My Dad Right Now

When I arrived, I walked in and my Dad was walking around the halls…with one house shoe in his hand.
YouTube link (faster and easier to watch):

Click on the image below to view my copy – only do this if the YouTube one is unavailable because it will load much more slowly.

Every dementia patient takes on a different personality as they decline. I think a big part of that is the type of dementia that they are afflicted with and what parts of the brain are being attacked first. This video definitely represents a part of who my Dad used to be. I was the daughter he doted on, so I am fortunate to get these moments. The big bear hugs are gone, but now I get a song and dance. And it does make me smile.

Then we walk to his room, him with house shoe in hand. When we enter, I see that he has placed each pillow on a folding chair and his light is turned upside down. I guess he was trying to figure out how to turn it on. He wanted to show it to me, but was very confused. I helped him fix it and he seemed happy that is was right again.

I could not find his other house shoe anywhere in his room. We even went on a “house shoe hunt” walk after I got him in his PJs to see if we could find it. I found out later from my Mom that I should have checked all the drawers in his room. Ah…note to self.

Usually at night, my Dad watches concerts on DVD. He is long past being able to follow any kind of talking. But he always loved music and concerts. My Mom has amassed a vast library of his favorite artists – Bee Gees, Garth Brooks, Rod Steward, Cher and Celiene Dion (I think the latter two are more for my Mom! .

So I sat with Dad and watched Rod Stewart. A bit off topic, but I have to say how cool it was to watch the crowd – an older crowd thoroughly enjoying reliving the songs of their youth – singing and dancing. It was so cool to see. I love concerts – the shared experience of music is so incredible.

While we are watching, I look my Dad’s life in a frame that my Mom had put together. I wonder if it even means anything to him at this stage. If anything it lets caregivers know who he was and reminds us too. There was an episode about 6 months ago where he was very upset/sad. One of the main caregivers helped him back to his room and he pointed to the picture of his sister in the frame – she died about 14 years ago. He must have relived something and was really upset.

The nurse comes in and gives Dad his meds and we watch for about 10 more minutes. Before I put Dad in bed, I try to get him to go to the bathroom for the 3rd time, but no dice. Also learned from my Mom to turn the faucet on – that trick really does work. Note to self… Hopefully he doesn’t have an accident.

Dad goes right to bed and at 7:30pm at night I walk out to my car. Saturday nights are the only nights I can do this, so it doesn’t happen every week. But when I can, I go. It is peaceful and very restful and I enjoy my time alone with him.

I don’t know if I am any closer to dealing with this detachment that I am feeling, but I am not going to harp on it. I would rather just have these memories to hold onto.

A few weekends back, we had lunch with Chris parent’s at an awesome tea house/ restaurant called Koriente. It is downtown and I would highly recommend it. Amazing food and decor. We hung out for about 3 hours we were so thoroughly enjoying ourselves!