Our Daughter Starts Preschool

When I originally started this blog, I planned for the secondary topic to be our struggles to parent our daughter (from my point of view). I've hardly written on this subject, as my mother's health problems took up most of my blogging attention. My mother is hardly out of the woods, but her condition is slowly improving. She is going weekly to her chorus practice and her exercise class. She is driving locally, planning meals and cooking, and functioning much better than periods in the summer. I think our plan is for her to get to the point where she feels positive about what she is doing every day and trying new things, and so that she can start making some decisions about how she wants to live in the future.

Before my mother became unable to function in May, we had hoped that our daughter would start preschool in the fall. We had looked at various preschools in our area, and were on a couple of waiting lists for fall openings. When my mother became sick and my wife starting taking our daughter to her parents' house early every weekday, we had to give up on those plans for preschools in our area. Without my mother's help with dropping off or picking up our daughter, we didn't think our daughter was ready for a full-day program. And in truth, my wife and I started thinking about moving closer to her parents (a minimum half-hour drive away on the highway) and looking for a preschool in that area. Since we are expecting a baby in November, we would also need to find childcare close by for the baby as well after my wife finished her maternity leave and went back to work.

Two weeks ago, my parents-in-law were compelled to take in a relative from out of state. He is high school age, but because of being unwanted by both his mother's family and father's family, he took a flight across country and will live with my parents-in-law for a year or two while he works on his high school equivalency certificate. I was especially concerned about my wife's cousin's emotional state, and if our daughter would be all right there at the house while my parents-in-law tried to work at home.

So within twenty four hours, we decided to stay at our current home with my mother and look for a preschool nearby. I scheduled three appointments for the Friday (with one or two backups from our previous search). Luckily, the first one we looked at, a child center close to my work downtown, was very professionally operated and we could tell that the staff really cared about their children. And most importantly, our daughter liked the place a lot, and didn't want to leave the playground. And the center had additional services that our daughter had been missing these last few months because of my mother's illness. It really was a simple decision which facility to choose.

We have been concerned because our daughter has only been cared for by family members since she was born. She is the only granddaughter on either side of the family, and she tends to get spoiled while being taken care of by her grandparents. Also, she hasn't really been exposed to other children her age, and even when we are with her, she is very shy and uncomfortable.
Our hope is that preschool will help her to socialize and develop developmental skills in which she is behind other two-year olds.

On Monday, our daughter started preschool. We arrived about 8:30 am, and I spent about an hour with her, though she didn't really want to be with the other kids in her class. The head of the preschool program was very helpful, and said our daughter could spend time with her until she adjusted to the preschool. There were tears when I had to leave, and our daughter cried a lot that morning, but by late morning she was in the classroom with the director and observing what the other kids were doing. My mother is helping us by picking our daughter up this week earlier than she will usually stay, so that she can ease into the routine. When she came back home, our daughter slept an hour from the exhaustion of the new routine.

My wife didn't sleep well on Sunday night from worrying about our daughter, and things have felt very stressful for me the last couple of days. I feel like it's the first day of preschool for me, too. Today went a little bit better for our daughter, and I have hope that things will be a little better as the days go by.

Searching for a Good Death

This morning, as I was getting my daughter ready for her daycare, my mother came in, very anxious, saying something about a cat and the stairs and ants. I figured our indoors cat had made some kind of mess during the night. But on my way out to take my daughter to the car, I found some animal’s runny poop on the walkway, and I figured this was what had bothered my mom.

But after my wife had left with my daughter, I went up the other pathway on our front garden, and found the remains of a cat’s head, with a busy line of ants converging on the head. Looking more carefully, it was the face of a brown and gray tabby cat, with the face itself mostly unscarred, but nothing of the ears or head behind the facial plate.

I went to the back supply shed, got a flat shovel and rake and a brown paper shopping bag, and cleaned up both messes. Since tomorrow is trash day on this block, my mother had already put out the trash bins, and I folded up the shopping bag and then put it into the black trash bin.

I had a momentary scare that the deceased cat was our cat, since it was a brown and gray tabby, but I went inside, washed my hands thoroughly, and found our cat in her upstairs room waiting for her morning meal and brushing.

I thought about how a cat’s remains had gotten fifteen yards into our walkway past a locked gate, and figured coyotes must have chased the cat under the gate, and made a meal of the unfortunate cat and left the unappetizing facial piece.

As we live just down from a large hilly urban park, I see coyotes sauntering along the street during the evening from time to time, but never as much as this summer. I considered putting up a poster in case the cat’s owner was frantically searching for the cat, but it seemed a morbid thing to post for anyone walking by to read. I also considered taking a photo in case I ended up writing about it for this blog, but by that time the remains were already in the trash bin.

It made me think about how a cat might want to die, and if our other cat who ended up at the pound this summer might have had a preferable death by being euthanized. But cats are at heart still wild, and maybe a cat would prefer a death fighting for his life to a quiet death in old age.

About a month ago, there was a provocative article in the New York Times Sunday magazine about the current state of the hospice movement in this country and people’s often contradictory search for a “good death,” when modern medicine can keep the chronically ill alive when they are likely to die of one disease or another.

Maybe five years ago early one morning I found another cat in front of our gate. The cat was mortally wounded, and ants were busily crawling over the body. It pained me to see the cat being eaten alive by ants, but when I tried to move the cat (what I would do next, I didn’t know), it summoning all its energy, the cat snarled at me. I think the cat had accepted its death, and did not mind the physical pain of the ants.

Perhaps the cat’s death holds some meaning for humans, who fear death so much and will do anything to prevent the inevitable.

About two years ago, my father discovered he had highly advanced cancer. The doctors told him the disease was terminal, and gave him two months to a year to live. My father then went to a specialist who promised him my father would beat the cancer. At first, he seemed to be doing fine while undergoing treatment, but declined quickly at about six months and passed away about nine months after the diagnosis.

I remember him telling me after his health had declined how much he suffered and how severe the pain was. My father was not the type of person to complain, so I could imagine the degree of his pain.

But at the end, he seemed very peaceful as he slipped away. At the end he seemed at peace with his life and what had happened. I like to think of it as a good death, and I can only hope that when my turn comes, I can achieve a similar peace.

Back from Out of Town

I've been out of town since last Friday. It's been almost five years since I last had to work on the road for an extended period, and I had forgotten how much of a grind it is (I get to credit about 14 hours of overtime for non-workdays, but the actual hours are probably a little longer, on the average).

Six or eight years ago, when I was on the road a lot, the time on the road didn't matter so much because I was single and had no real family obligations. Everything is different after you are married and you and your spouse are raising a toddler together. But based on my phone conversations with my wife, I think we really take for granted having loved ones around all the time, and when they are not there, you really miss them a lot.

And yet, with strong ties to loved ones, it's easier to get through the hard work and long hours because you have something sustaining you back at home, and a reason to stay safe and come back to your loved ones.