Doing things.

Daily care for Edda is always on my mind. Sometimes (ok, who am I kidding, it really is most of the time) I groan under the thought of finding care for Edda for the rest of her life. But sometimes I think that caring for Edda is a daily, meditative ritual which I could say brings me closer to God except that I am not a religious person so when I say closer to God, I’m not sure where I should be standing (more to the left maybe?  is that closer?). We all have our strengths, Jeremy loves food and I love to sleep, so these are the things we like to do with Edda.

Jeremy loves to cook special things for Edda. Edda has eaten oatmeal almost every morning ever since she started eating solid foods. Jeremy has figured out just the right amount of oatmeal, raisins, milk, brown sugar, heat and time to make a perfectly creamy steaming single serving of oatmeal. I have watched him do it many, many times and even though I know the amounts of each of the ingredients, it never fails that when Jeremy travels for work, my morning Edda oatmeal is just subpar. A little too grainy, a little too runny.

Just recently, Jeremy needed to start leaving the house earlier in the mornings and therefore this necessitated the transfer of the oatmeal cooking and feeding of Edda to our caregiver which in the grand scheme of things is not a big deal, but to Jeremy it seemed like he lost his primary time with Edda. I thought he was being silly, because I don’t have this feeling about feeding Edda, but I do have the same feeling about putting Edda to bed.

I should bath Edda every night – goodness knows she gets enough food, slobber, etc on herself to warrant it, but I usually aim for a full bath every third night or so. Otherwise I just make sure the important parts are clean – she is not so easy to bath anymore – she is a big girl.

After the bath, her hair is blown dry and into clean PJs, I tuck us both into bed.  I think this may be one of my favorite parts of the day – I can feel the tension in Edda’s hands relax, the teeth grinding slow down.  I can hear her breathing become more rhythmic and steady and then hear her snore just the tiniest little bit.  (I got new glasses! 25 dollars! God I’m so cheap!).