My sister and I just returned from a trip to Washington D.C. When Bubbe was diagnosed with lung cancer, she said to me, "There are two things I want to see before I go - you be a mom and Washington D.C." Well, she got to see the former, albeit for a short time, but she never got to visit Washington D.C. Ben had even planned a trip that was canceled due to her deteriorating health. It was just sort of unspoken that my sister and I would one day take this trip for her. We got a cute luxury apartment on VRBO and spent 5 days sightseeing, eating out, and lots of quality sister time. We got to visit with our cousin, Sarah, and see the aquarium in Baltimore. Here are some pictures from our trip. Neither of us brought a real camera so these are just from our phones and are pretty random.
We brought some her ashes in this little wooden box. This sat on a bookcase in our living room growing up and I always loved it.
Jessie even got Michelle Obama bangs!
One of the first things we did in D.C. was visit the National Museum of American History. Mom would have LOVED this museum. We started with the First Ladies exhibit, which was pretty cool. The Star Spangled Banner was pretty incredible too.
Gelato = happiness.
We had dinner with some of Ben and Jessie's friends and went out for gelato after. I love gelato. One of the happiest moments in my life was eating gelato in Venice 15 years ago.
Meanwhile, Charlotte was at home making "a jingle belt."
One of the joys of traveling in these modern times is getting pictures and text messages from home. Mike sent me lots of pictures of Charlotte being her adorable self.
We also visited the Hirschorn Museum and sculpture garden. I loved this oversized stick of butter.
Mike and Charlotte went to Choo Choo Bobs
Waiting in line, it was cold.
We went to the Holocaust Museum first thing in the morning to wait in line to get tickets. We got tickets for the afternoon. Then we had lunch in the cafe at the American Indian Museum and then spent the day walking up and down the mall to see the memorials. My mom would have loved the presidential memorials. We spent over 3 hours in the Holocaust Museum and we didn't even see all of it. That's the thing about Washington D.C. it's impossible to see it all in one trip! We'll just have to go again! And our dad always wanted to go to Greece and never got to go, so one day we'll have to do that too.
Emily is in Washington DC with her sister until tomorrow. A couple of times on Saturday Charlotte said, "Mommy working." So I explained to her that Emily was actually in Washington D.C. She found this explanation to be as acceptable as I do when someone explains something to me over my head but I know to take them at their word (theory of relativity anyone?).
The final step to Charlotte's bedtime routine is to run to the top of the stairs and shout "Night night Mommy!" So Saturday night she did that out of habit and I reminded her that Emily was in DC and she said, "Oh" kind of like how I would say "Oh" if someone told me that time and space are relative.
Since then, Charlotte has been true to her routine but notes her mom's absence. She will typically shout night night to whatever animal is not in the room with us or when my friend Nathan was over Sunday night, she just shouted at him.
But today for her afternoon nap she ran to the top of the stairs and shouted, "Night night Mommy Washington DC!" And then as she was walking to her crib she said, "Mommy go on trip. Mommy on a airplane."
Huh. Well, if she can piece that together, maybe I can piece this together afterall.
Nope. I just watched it a few times and was like, "Whatever" after about 40 seconds. Good to know that Charlotte is not "whatever" about Emily, and is trying to sort out where her mom is.
June 11, 2012
We lost our Bubbe one year ago. We miss her everyday in so many ways. On the weekends when she would always stop by on her way to Half Price Books. Random weeknights when I want to call her and talk about an episode of Law & Order, or how the leaves are changing on the trees, or how the springtime birds just started chirping, or about what I ate for dinner. Her rants were so awesome. Some of the times I miss my mom the most are just when I watching Charlotte eat. My mom loved to feed people and she loved to feed babies and watch them eat. I don't think anything made her happier than being a Bubbe and watching the babies eat. We only have a handful of pictures of Bubbe and Charlotte.
Today we went to an open house at Our Lady of Peace, the residential hospice place where Bubbe spent her last weeks. It is such an amazing place and we are so lucky that Bubbe was able to be there. The people who work there took good care of her, and of us. Before Bubbe went to Our Lady of Peace, my sister and I took care of her all day everyday. We weren't sure if moving her to a residential hospice place was the right thing to do, but one of the nurses said to us, "you need to be daughters now." That was the greatest gift, we were able to be daughters and my mom was able to be our mom. For Christmas, they had a Celebration of Life fundraiser and open house with a tree where you could buy an ornament to honor a loved one. I think that for the rest of my life all of my charitable giving go there. Mike, my sister and I brought the babies to visit with staff, eat some treats, and admire the tree.
I have been taking a leave from work so that I could take care of Bubbe and spend time with her. My sister and I were taking care of my mom until Friday when she moved to a residential hospice facility in St Paul. Now we visit her as much as we can with babies and cat, Emmett, in tow. It's hard to think about life without Bubbe. She's only 65 and I always imagined she would be around a lot longer.
Until recently, every Friday my mom (aka Bubbe) would come over to watch Charlotte while I worked from home. It was really nice for us. Bubbe never shows up empty handed and each Friday she brought another dress for Charlotte. We have a variety of sizes and seasons to choose from. Charlotte is wearing one of my favorites, a cable knit sweater dress. In an effort to reproduce this photo of Art and his overalls, I staged this:
Charlotte was very cooperative and didn't try to eat one of the dresses until I was done.
