Taking care of business

Yesterday's trip to visit Dad was both good and hard. Our first long trip with Kid A (two hours in the car), and I wish it could have been under more pleasant circumstances. Little Brother (hereafter "LB") and I had been communicating in the days leading up to the visit about strategies for dealing with the mountain of issues, and were on the same page about our "message": sell the house ASAP, find a foster home for the dog, figure out the financial situation, make sure he goes to the better rehab after the hospital stay.

We arrived in town around noon, a bit later than we'd hoped, and had some lunch with LB, then went to the hospital. We dispensed quickly with the small talk and got down to business, talking about realtors (Dad has been trying to sell the house himself, to save money), and selling his extra car, and selling his big, gas-guzzling diesel truck and getting him something smaller and more affordable. He actually did okay until we started talking about the neighbors' offer to have their sister foster the dog, and he panicked. It quickly became clear that he had no idea he'd been out of home for over three weeks -- he must have thought it had been just a few days, a week at most. He said, "It's sad, but that dog's all I've got left." After much discussion, and a real shutting-down on Dad's part, he relented, and agreed that the dog would be better off staying with people and other dogs until Dad was ready to take her back.

That was the hard part: forcing Dad to deal with the urgent, pressing business of the possibility of foreclosure, and the reality that he must sell his home immediately. I hope as few people as possible have to go through that, because even though LB and I have parented our Dad for a long time, this was some of the hardest stuff we've ever had to do. From there, though, the visit definitely improved. Dad needed his beard trimmed in the worst way, so LB had brought his trimmers, and I brushed off my hairdressing skills and whacked away. I think that helped his outlook a bit, and then TM brought Kid A back from their long walk and, after I fed her, Dad got a chance to hold his first grandchild, for the first time in a month. She was on her best behavior, too: no fussing, and even some big old smiles and grins at her grandpa. He seemed to be a lot happier after that, and I really hope that the visit from Kid A is the shot in the arm he needed.

Medically, he's doing okay: he's lucid and coherent, and was shocked to hear about his last three weeks, since most of what we told him he didn't remember happening. It's still rather unclear how the pin in his ankle "came out." He may have fallen again, and that may have jarred it and the IV loose. He claims he did not pull out the pin or the IV. He's got big bandages on both ankles; apparently, at some point in the last 3-5 days, one of the pins punctured his other ankle, and who knows how that happened. And both legs are infected, from the surgical and puncture wounds. But he is in the hospital and being well cared for. All reports are that the rehab he was in was a bad place. They've lost their license at least a couple of times. Probably a good thing that he needed immediate medical attention, because it got him out of there, but it's probably their fault that he got in that condition in the first place. Dad is talking lawsuit. We'll see.

So I've now got a plastic shopping bag full of bills to sift through, phone calls to make, etc. Fortunately, I have a bit of experience from last summer, dealing with similar matters for him. It's a bit more intense this time, though, and not just because of the baby and the new job. We've got to move fast if we want to save what little equity Dad's got left. The good news is that the housing market in his immediate area has recently improved dramatically, and the elementary school across the street from his house has reopened this year, after several years of disuse. So we're hopeful.

I know this has been a long post already, but I want to write a little bit about Kid A, too, before I head off to do other things. It's certainly happier than writing about Dad, and I want to write about her regularly, so that I don't forget stuff. I know that childhood goes fast, and there are all sorts of new things happening all the time, and I have a terrible memory, so I want to capture as much as I can. Just in the last 24 hours, I am amazed at how different her hands and arms feel to me. She has always been a solid, big girl, but there's a new density to her hands and arms that indicates to me a new level of muscle tone and dexterity. Her hands feel bigger, her arms more solid. And I'm noticing that her arm movements seem to have more purpose, are less incidental. It's really exciting. She plays a lot every day, and is really interested in the world around her ... so much so, that she needs a fair amount of help getting to sleep! She gives most of her best smiles to everyone else -- including her toy that she plays with every day -- but we get so much sweet quality time together every day that I really don't mind. I know the smiles that are just for me will come in time.

Tomorrow I go in for my first day of work, and Kid A will have her first full day of child care. Then we'll dive in next week for five days in a row. I know she'll be fine, and eventually, I will, too. Wish me sanity and perspective!