Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Its bronchitis, again and DBG news

Well, I have been struggling with a bout of bronchitis, seem to get this every Fall and early Winter. I am bummed, had great hopes that with the weight loss and the exercise regimen that I might be able to get through the season without the bronchitis. It is so exhausting to cough constantly. And I hate my inhalers. Whine, whine...I know.

Other than that let's see what has been happening.

Halloween pics will arrive soon, as Torina says, promptly next Spring:-) Had Lani and Imiki and Dancing Baby Girl come down for Halloween and Lani and Imiki also stayed over (DBG always stays over every other weekend). It was fun to see how excited Lani was to do Halloween with her kids, I think she is getting some experiences that she never had as a child. Lani's sister lives here in the city not too far from me so we met up with her and DBG's little cousin Kiera. Then later that evening after the kids were asleep Lani asked me if it was okay to leave the kids with me and go out dancing with her sister.

It didn't take me a minute to say yes. Lani has had to be all to the kids for a long time without much support. For her birthday recently all the recognition that she got was that DBG sang Happy birthday to her and Imiki clapped. (this brought tears to her eyes, and she said it was the best present she had had in awhile) But she is still a young adult and her responsibilities sit heavily on her young shoulders. I told her to go, have fun, rest assured the kids were safe for the moment and meet her own needs for fun for an evening. She and her sister had a great time and Lani was so thankful to us for not being judgemental, etc. Heck why should I be judgemental, I was just jealous :-) I haven't been dancing in ages.

The next day we got haircuts for both kids, Imiki's first one! and then we met Spidey and his foster mom and did sibling portraits in Christmas pajamas. Lani hadn't seen Spidey in about a year and even though she didn't interact with him, and we hope he didn't see her, she was able to sneak a peek. She has really come to good place with her decision to TPR on him, she knows that she would not have been able to meet his needs and if she had tried she would have lost all three kids.

Then Lani and Imiki went on home and DBG and I finished our weekend together by going to the zoo on Sunday.

On Monday Lain and Imiki came back into town and I went with her for Imiki's heart surgeon appointment. Poor little guy is going to have to have heart surgery and Lani really wanted someone there for support and as an extra set of ears. Came to find out that he has three things wrong with his heart and they are only going to be able to fix one with the catheterizing. They will watch the other two valve issues and we will all pray that he doesn't have to have open heart surgery. Lani was really shocked by the news that things were worse than they thought and she had quite a breakdown on the way back to my house. That's a whole lot to deal with as a very young single parent who is barely holding her family together on the income from a McDonald's job. DBG was not happy about going back with Lani and pitched one of her fits, yealling at the "Judge" who says she has to only visit our house etc. Lani absorbed DBG's anger pretty well and we talked about how DBG was out of her routine and napless. When Lani called that evening she said things were fine from the point of leaving my house, so I was glad she didn't have to put up with DBG in a foul mood on top of the bad news she was still processing about Imiki.

So that is my catch up post.

I was thrilled about the election results and then by Thursday I started with the bronchitis.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I've read your blog for awhile. My heart goes out to Lani. No young mother should have to carry such a heavy burden.
I think it's great you've been so available to help care for DBG, but I wonder (and please don't take this as criticism of your efforts and good intentions) wouldn't it be better for her and Lani if you weren't so involved?
I just think Lani can't compete with the amenities at your house. It must seem like Disneyland to DBG when she compares it to her own home.
You have a much higher disposable income (despite your money woes} than Lani and of course DBG would rather be in a nicer house with people treating her like a princess. I would guess being home with her mother pales in comparison.
Once again, this is not intended as criticism, just a thought.

quilted family said...

Thank you for your comment. This is something I have struggled with also. Originally the plan was to taper off contact slowly as DBG made a good transition into Lani's house. But Lani is the one who keeps asking me to help her out. I set some limits, we will only do two weekends a month, even though Lani wishes I would do every weekend as she does not have other babysitting.

Even though DBG was a little upset with the transitions in her life lately, and she reacted by trying to go back to some stability.
After this last visit, she was anxious to go back, expressed missing Lani and wanted to call her twice while she was with us.

I think that she is bonding with her mother and definitely with her brother. It is a process and we take it wone step at a time.