Embrace Your Destiny: Motivated by Loleh

Side planks with Loleh's help

 “Loleh, you can help me do planks! Watching you gives me power. You make this very hard exercise fun. I LOVE watching you grin at me. Do I make you happy? You sure make me happy.” 

 This has been an every morning ritual since Loleh and Liz have been visiting. Loleh fills the room with his energy and unfortunately, sucks mine from me. By the end of each day, I am exhausted and hopefully in bed by 8:00 pm.

Being Grandma is everything I imagined it to be and more. I have come a long way with my strength and confidence since seeing him in early March. Then, I was uncomfortable holding him while standing. I felt wobbly. Now, I feel fine burping him while standing for ten minutes. Then I can walk very carefully to a seat. I cannot carry him upstairs. Unless I have back up, we stay on whatever level of the house we are on. But, some baby skills I have found I can do are:

 

• 

  Usual position for pick up
  

  Pick him up when he is laying down

• Hand him off to Liz in the bathtub

• Wash him head to toe

• Bottle feed 

• Change a dirty diaper 

• Dress him

• Push his stroller

Next time they come, in six weeks, I may be able to do nothing. I'll have to start over and check out each skill with Liz before attempting on my own.

 

 

 

My biggest challenge has been managing myself. I have to prioritize my activities around Liz's teaching schedule. She is finishing the spring semester at Roanoke College. Of all the things I do to manage my MS  symptoms, the ones I have been able to do daily are strength workout, French lessons with Duo and afternoon walking. My daily diet has remained the same as well.

Stroller ride

Household chores get the rest of my time. Meal preparation never ceases. Bone broth and yogurt have to be made when they run out. The evening mealtime was the big issue. We were having too much fun in the afternoon which threw eating later each day. About Wednesday, we didn't finish eating and cleaning up until 9:00 pm. That put me into bed at 9:30 pm, a full hour late. That was a tipping point. I said, “Donnie, help me figure out how we can reorganize eating time so we finish our chores and be ready for bed by 8:00 pm. We can’t continue at this pace. It’s fun, but exhausting.”

He said, “Well, we should start our afternoon walk earlier, maybe by 3:00 pm. Let’s think about dinner too. We don’t have to wait for Liz to eat.”

 

 

He always cuts to the chase. I said, “You are so right! I’ll plan meals that I can prepare and plate for all of us. Then, when she is ready to eat, she can finish by heating up the dish or putting dressing on the salad. Let’s try getting back on our usual schedule.”

Afternoon stroller walks are a priority for all of us. It’s invigorating exercise and therapy. To get down the driveway, Liz carries Loleh while either Donnie or I push the stroller down the shifty gravel. At the bottom, she loads him in the stroller and adjusts his cover. 

As long as we keep moving, Loleh is happy. But I have to stop for water breaks. Loleh threatens to cry if we stop for very long. Usually we talk but sometimes we sing children’s songs. I would like to practice piano but haven’t found a good time. With so many educators in the family, we try to have a well rounded schedule of physical education (tummy time for Loleh), language arts and math with books, and music.

Big smile for Grandma

Papa Philippe came last weekend. His first comment was, “Oh, my! He’s grown so much since I saw him last. That was only eight days!”

Each day he does something new or different. He just turned three months. When he comes back in late June, he will be so big. Hope I can still hold him!

In all honesty, it’ll take a month to recover my energy for the next visit. I know better how to manage myself. I’ll have to keep working on total body strength to stay even. He is my motivation to keep working hard!