the spectrum of life in one week

while we were on our mid-western tour, we went to a baptism for baby girl and then a visitation for friends' father, all within a week. from one end of the spectrum of life to the other. this man was 60 years old and had been fighting alzheimer's disease for five or more years. he had become just a shell of what he once was.

i remember him being very kind, extremely musically inclined, and always wanting to help anyone in any way that he could. he was a very strong Christian man, with very strong morals and values. he was a family man, very loving to his wife and three daughters. he had a huge heart.

this disease made him angry, mean and not know his family. he became violent and aggressive towards others. up until the last six months of his life, his wife and daughters were caring for him at home. it got to be too much for them and they put him into a facility. that facility couldn't care for him and had to send him to another. this happened at least twice that i know.

it was a long, tough battle for his family as well. they had to keep learning how to act around him, react to him and how to treat him as the disease progressed. he and his wife were very active in local, state and federal government trying to find ways to fight, if not cure, this disease.

i know it will take time for his family to feel like they are able to move forward, but i hope they are at peace knowing that he is in a much better place now. js' family has been through alzheimers disease, as i'm sure many other families have also. i'm hoping for a cure or some way to slow down the process or prevent the disease from ever happening.

we're back and they're gone!

js, pbs and i have been away for a little over a week. we were celebrating with my brother and sister-in-law baby girl's baptism and then we took a mid-western tour of the state where we were born and raised. it's not  really much of a vacation because we do feel like we're being pulled in a thousand different directions by family and friends.

they don't mean to pull us in all directions. it's just what happens. so now we're back home and all seems to be well. we've unpacked and most of the laundry is done. of course there's always something else that needs to be done, but we'll get to whatever that might be eventually.

as for the crickets and other critters, they're gone! js sprayed the night before we left on our trip, inside and out. we came home to silence instead of loud, incessant, cricket chirping. a few crickets and other critters are/were lying on their backs, not moving because they are dead.

it was very nice to come home to a quiet, cricket free, critter free home.

crickets and other critters

cricket the size of ma, ri,ct & nj

in the last few weeks we have had an increase in crickets the size of massachusettes, rhode island, connecticut and new jersey, combined (puzzle pieces, but still!), in our house! these guys are huge, loud and ugly! they have kept us awake at night. they have scared us when they appear from out of nowhere it seems. these crickets even swim!

swimming cricket
i took this from inside and must
have been 6 to 8 feet away!

there have also been other critters too. some of those include ants, cave/camelback crickets, silverfish, millipede looking things, etc. since we have never lived in our own house before, we don't know what to do to get rid of them. js has talked about calling an exterminator and that would be great if it wouldn't cost an arm and a leg. i'm nervous about the chemicals that they might have to use and what might hurt us, especially because of pbs. i'm worried that they're leaving some sort of disease or other fungus or parasites or bacteria around for pbs, js or myself to possibly get sick. any suggestions for do it yourself extermination possibilities would be much appreciated.

larger image of swimming cricket

if we would have an exterminator come, how much do they normally charge? i'm sure it probably depends on the area that they need to spray, what they use and what needs to be done. our house is an older house and does not have a crawl space and is slab on grade, according to js. i think that means that the foundation sits right on the ground. the crickets have been mainly in the sun room, lower level family room, laundry room/utility room/bathroom and garage. 

we haven't seen any roaches, which i am very thankful about. we lived in a "second floor" apartment once where the front door was on the second floor but the "balcony" was on the ground. in this apartment we found roaches the size of half dollars. they were big, black and disgusting! needless to say, we moved out of there pretty quickly. there were other issues there too, but that's another post on privacy for a later time. one of the neighbors cooked a lot of ethnic food but i don't know if they ever cleaned up after themselves. so the roaches were definitely in heaven!

is there a safe, even environmentally friendly, do it yourself way to get rid of crickets and other critters? so far, knock on wood and any other wood product, we haven't had termites or mice, that we know of. that makes me feel a little better. we keep the house pretty clean because we don't want any of these critters as visitors or house guests. when we do see the crickets we have been killing them with a shoe or rolled up newspaper, so we're not against terminating them. but i guess by me asking about exterminators, you could probably figure that out.

preschool for pbs...

my brother, sister-in-law and baby girl are home and have been for almost a week. it sounds like everything went very well for them, paperwork for the two states and agencies was all filed and set to go before two weeks were up. they headed out and made it home by this weekend. my mom and dad were very anxious to get to meet baby girl and jealous that we had already met her.

we skyped with them tonight while they were having "tummy time". baby girl was trying to turn her head in the direction of our voices on the computer. she was very alert and awake for being almost two weeks old. i think pbs was a little jealous of the attention that baby girl was getting and was trying to show his grandparents, aunt and uncle all of his toys and his newest trick.

his newest trick happens to be putting together a puzzle of the united states, naming each state and their capitol. the boy is two and a half! this has become one of his favorite things to do. we started out by asking him where he was born and showing him the state. then we'd ask where other people were born and show those states. we also ask where people live and show him those states. from there it moved to naming each state and now we're naming each state and their capitol. what two and a half year old do you know that knows these things? he also knows that delaware is the first state and that pennsylvania is the second state. we're still working on the others.

we're thinking about putting him into preschool this fall. i know, we're a little late on this but we're hoping to be able to get him in at the church preschool up the street from where we live. we have only one car, so this is the best option for us. i hope that the teachers don't find pbs to be too precocious or ahead of the rest of the kids. i work with him all the time and that's how he knows all of this. he knows his alphabet, can recite full books back to us, can count to 20 (when he wants to), knows many names of dinosaurs and what time period they are from, etc. i think he might even be able to read a little bit, but i haven't tested that theory yet. i don't want to be the parent that thinks their child is a genius and can do no wrong. i know he can do wrong! i have seen him do it and be given consequences for it.

if you were a teacher and you had a student like this in your class, what would you do? would he be bored? is two and a half too early to put him into preschool? i hope not. we really want to put him into preschool for the socialization of it because he's not around that many other kids. i think that he would do fine around the other kids and want him to realize that the world does not revolve around him. at home, the world does seem to revolve around him. he's an only child. i think preschool is just what we need for pbs. any other thoughts or suggestions on this subject?

update: baby girl is here!

baby girl arrived yesterday afternoon! everybody is doing well and is healthy. we've seen one picture and she is beautiful! i'm hoping that the rest of my brother and sister-in-law's time goes smoothly while they spend the next two weeks getting to know their little girl. happy birthday little one!