How Do I Miss Thee? Let Me Count the Ways. III

I miss watching Dancing with the Stars with Margret.

I watched it this past season without Margret. I found it difficult at first, but then found myself turning to hubby and saying, "Margret would have liked that" about some dance move, or some costume detail, or some bit of shenanigans that went on. I think Margret might have been voting for Cody Linley, because he was a cast memeber on Hanna Montana, but I also think she would have clapped her hands and squeeeeed for some of the Cloris Leachman moments.

Her favorite star was Billy Ray Cyrus. She wanted me to cast my votes for him so intensely that I made a login for her on the DWTS website so she could have her OWN votes. Other seasons, she enjoyed watching; she had favorites, but that was the first season she had a preference strong enough that she wanted to vote! As a Hanna Montana fan, Margret got to see Billy Ray with his daughter on the Disney Channel's programming, but there he was, learning how to do ballroom dancing.

Husband watched DWTS with us, too. He and I tried to guess what the judges scores would be before they gave them. He was right a surprising number of times, too, more often than I was certainly. We also tried to guess at the beginning of the results show which couple was going to be eliminated. Margret never wanted to join in that guessing session.

When we watched tv together, Margret often sat between my feet, as I sat in a chair. I'm not sure how that habit got started, but it did. Then too, it gets chilly down by the tv, so I would have an afghan wrapped around me, and she would wrap one around her. She kept my feet warm, I kept her afghan/shawl from sliding away. It was a companionable feeling.

In fact I miss watching any tv show with Margret. She clapped her hands, laughed out loud, commented on the action, got up and walked away or muted the sound during the food commercials "because they make me hungry when I'm not". Smart lady.

Margret's Crafty Mama - Origami (flapping bird)

When the girls were little, about 4, 6, 8 and 10, I did an Origami Workshop for the children's room at our local library.

We prepared by teaching the Children's Room staff how to make the items we had planned. The girls all helped to show them.

When the participants and their families arrived, and started folding, the girls and the staff helped the workshop go smoothly. I stood at the front of the room, demonstrating with BIG paper, and staff and girls assisted anyone having trouble following the directions.

Here is one of the pieces we folded that day, a box that can be made from any reasonably large rectangle of paper:



And here is another. This one is a favorite of mine, and I have made many many mobiles using this design.

One More ceramics photo

Thanks to Margret's sister B, I have a copy of the photo I was lamenting.

The cats she's holding, she did. The indian maiden (Pocahontas?) on the top shelf is her work. I did the ginger jars. The teapot and Belle from Beauty and the beast are her work as well. Over her shoulder you can see the head of another figure she painted. The mugs behind my head were collected by husband, from MusikFest.
Do you do ceramics? Buy greenware? Paint bisque ware? How do you amuse yourself and make presents at the same time?

I Made It Myself

I originally titled this I got angry so she could say, "I Made It Myself" but I like the short version better. It's pithier. It's right to the point. I think I get way too wordy, and eventually get to my point by way of Robin Hood's Barn. That's how my Dad used to refer to my series of digressions that eventually, if he was patient, would end with the point I wanted to make. But I digress...

Among the things I was told that Margret would never do was have a hobby.

Have I mentioned that the pediatrician who saw Margret in the hospital was a pessimist? Maybe I didn't, maybe he wasn't, but he sure sounded like one, saying She'll never do this, she'll never do that. And she won't do all those other things you expect of a normal child.

Yes. Listening to him could have been very depressing. (It was.) It could have thrown me into a deep funk. (It came close.) But when he implied that this girl child who had just been born to me was not of value to me, should not be of value to me (Get her on a waiting list for a state institution. The waiting list can be as long as six years so you should do it right away. Don't get too attached.) he made me angry. Very angry. Like Bruce Banner (character in the Incredible Hulk series, who says, "Don't make me angry. You won't like it when I'm angry.") angry.

When you make me that kind of angry, I may not turn green, swell up, roar and smite you, but I will dig in my heels and oppose you. I will assess my options and decide whether it is better to rise up against you, or to bide in patience until you go away. By making me that kind of angry, you lose credibility in my eyes, and you have already lost the war.

I had the support of the nurses on the maternity unit. I had the support of family. I had support from the kind women in the La Leche League. I had faith in my love for my baby. I believed that if I believed in her, and supported her, she would grow up to be the best Margret she was able to be.

Fast forward a couple decades.

Margret's sister C and C's friend G took me and Margret as their guests to a ceramics painting class. Margret had a wonderful time, and wanted to do more. I signed her up for a class of her own, and provided transportation. She loved it. She enjoyed chatting with the other class members. She came home glowing with good spirits. She brought home beautiful things she had painted herself.

After a time, I signed up for the class too. I got annoyed spending time driving back home, puttering for a very short interval, then going back to pick her up, when I could stay and have some fun.

There was some, "Mom, would you do this for me please?" but the teacher knew she could do it herself. I knew it too. I had my own project to try to finish. So she did it herself. And she did it very very well.

She used many of the pieces she completed as gifts. I wish I had photographs of all of them. One she made as a gift to her youngest sister was a half size baby bunny. Another was a duckling she gave as a gift to Nana.

Nana had a collection of ceramic ducks and geese on her kitchen windowsill, and Margret's duckling had a place among them. We got to see it each time we visited at Nana's house. It made me smile to see it sitting there in the sun. Every time. Here it is, the leftmost duckling. Sorry this is blurry, but it is the only picture I found of it in my collection.

I don't have any photos of the bunny, or of the cat she gave one aunt for a mantle decoration, or of most of the other pieces, but they were very nice. You may take my word on that. One of the pieces Margret kept was an angel. That's Margret's angel in this next picture.


One year she made a bunch of ceramic boxes and used them for gifts to family members. She made extras and let me take them to the craft fair with me to sell. Here is a close up of some of her boxes.
And the following picture shows some of her pieces on display on my table at the craft fair at Amore Farms
Another year she made snowflake boxes for almost everyone. She proudly said, "I made it myself."

Hobbies, she had a few. Another one she had was knitting. She made scarves for family members for Christmas another year. I taught her to knit with knitting needles, but it took her a very long time. She was interested in a knitting machine, so we looked into getting one. She got all excited about it, so we got one for her. I helped her cast on, then she did the knitting. I helped her cast off and do the finishing. I am convinced she could have done the cast off herself if I had insisted, but she was so excited to go on to start the next scarf that I gave in and did it for her. I have to look for pictures of them for another post.

Fearless DUKW Driver

In August of 2000, my daughters and I were together at C's apartment near Boston. D had flown in from school in the midwest, and she, Margret and I went on the DUKW tour of Boston. There comes a point in the tour when your vehicle goes down an incline and into the water.

This is the point where the driver asks all the little kids aboard if they want to steer the DUKW. After the two small ones had turns, and the driver was looking for another victim volunteer, D was sitting behind Margret pointing at her with both hands, and bouncing with eagerness. It took a little persuading, but soon Margret was guiding this 7.5 ton amphibious vehicle down the Charles River.

{edit}I was informed that these pictures were AFTER the bridge. And, that if you look closely in the round mirror (bumper view mirror?) you can see the bridge BEHIND us. Also, if you look in the rear view mirror, the eyes, eyebrows and dark hair belong to D.
Can you see the bridge up ahead? Yes, there is one, hard to see because when we got closer, I didn't take pictures. I was just glorying in Margret's delight as the driver said, "This is where I usually take back the wheel, but you go ahead and guide her through."

Cool as a cucumber and ten times as pretty, Miss Margret took the driver's directions like a pro. Just had to get a shot from the side so you could see the look on her face, just loving her chance to be behind the wheel, and having a BIG vehicle doing her bidding.

Margret relinquished the helm with a smile, and the tour continued back onto dry land, and back to our staring point. A car tried to cut in next to us as the DUKW turned into the driveway. There was a crunch, and the driver swore. He had looked all around before the turn to make sure there were no cars up to close, and one had to go sneak in and dispute territory. The DUKW hardly noticed, and the car sported a crumple.

And here she is, Margret's DUKW, the very blue Waterfront Wanda, high and dry after we all disembarked.

Margret feet with Bunny

Here is a story in pictures of Margret and baby bunnies.

I stepped outside intending to take the recycling out, and saw a mommy bunny and several babies on the lawn and walk in front of the house. I called Margret to come see the bunnies. She came outside and sat on the step.

"Bunnies! Aww, cute!"

Then I took the recycling bin out to dump in the outside receptacle, going wide around the step in hopes of not scaring the bunnies... and the bunnies ran. One ran right behind Margret's feet, and sat very very still, hiding.
Poor bunnies didn't like how the recycling made loud rattling and banging noises. I told Margret not to try to touch the bunny, but the noise sent the bunny quivering against her feet.

"He's so SOFT!" she exclaimed.

I spotted another little bunny bun bun sitting in the grass at the edge of the driveway, so I took my camera, lay down on the driveway and zoomed in on him. Good optical zoom on this old camera of mine. Camera lens was about three feet from bunny.

One more picture of little bunny hiding himself behind the feet, and tickling Margret.


Mama Bunny didn't seem very concerned. She sat on the dirt and rocks at the end of the street, perhaps thirty feet away from her babies. You may have to click on the image and see the larger version of it to pick out Mrs. Bunny, who is in the center of the picture.

Happy Girl

This picture is from another trip to New York City, this time to the Bolivar Arellano Gallery for a fundraiser auction of Ricky Martin posters, books, magazines, pictures, etc.

Margret had enormous fun talking to everyone. She even bid on a couple items to give me. Among other things, she came home with a poster that someone else bid on, and then gave to her

Early Intervention

Margret was one of the first babies in the early intervention program at the local ARC.

She only a few weeks old when the first therapist paid us a visit. The therapist evaluated Margret's abilities and then showed me how to make Margret do a sort of sit up (I pulled her to sitting from lying down) to strengthen her neck muscles. The therapist would return in a week to see how we were doing.

I was to do this activity with Margret for 15 minutes at a time, twice a day. After about the sixth sit up in our first group, Margret started to object. Loudly. I picked her up, cuddled her and got her calmed down. Then I did a few more sit ups. She objected, so I gave her a break, and gave a good bit of thought to what I was going to do next. For the rest of the day, I had her doing a few sit ups each time I changed her diaper. We settled on three as the number she would do without getting cranky.

Over the next few days, instead of the 15 minutes twice a day, that's what we did, a few sit ups at each diaper change, with Mom singing or doing rhymes or rubbing noses, anything to make it fun.

By the end of the week, I could see a definite improvement in the steadiness with which Margret held up her head, but I was concerned that the therapist would not be happy with the change I had made in the therapy.

At the next visit I confessed, and the therapist frowned. When she evaluated Margret's progress, though, the frown turned to a smile, and she said we could continue with more of the same.

There were more home visits and more exercises, and then, when Margret was a few months old, therapy was moved to a group setting. I put Margret in her baby carrier on my chest, and walked to the sessions.

There were other babies there, and I enjoyed chatting with their mothers. Margret found the new and different toys of interest.

It was here that she had her first formal evaluation. Of the questions on the form, the only one I remember clearly is "Regards raisin". With Mom and a new interesting person to watch and listen to, and to Margret all people were more interesting than things, the evaluator had a difficult time deciding if Margret did indeed regard the raisin.

This early intervention stuff seemed to help, and more children entered the program. They moved therapy sessions to larger quarters, and started to send a van to pick the children up. I rode the van with Margret until she was deemed old enough to go by herself.

Livin La Vida Loca, or Margret in New York City

One of Margret's desires was to go see a live concert by her favorite singer. We did that. And here is photographic proof. Note: Margret did not normally use a wheelchair. The distances we intended to cover on foot in the city, and at the speed we intended to travel, she would have been exhausted and miserable, so I rented one. The folks at the rental place cheerfully added holders for TWO oxygen tanks on the back, so we had the one in use, and a spare. Thanks guys!

Margret got to see Times Square in the rain. Not exactly dancing in the rain, but you are encouraged to use your imagination.

She got to see a police man riding his horse.


She went sight seeing on the Sightseeing bus.
She got to look down from the Empire State Building to see the world spread out below her
but she much preferred being inside the gift shop, picking out something to bring home and gift to her friends.

She got to tour Radio City Music Hall

She got to pose with a real Rockette.

Margret got to see her favorite Latin singer at Radio City Music Hall. Live and in concert. She was thrilled.and to visit, and pose, with other Ricky Martin fans.