Friday, December 02, 2005

Of cats and sisters

After I had a helluva time getting Noah to bed last night, we had an EXCELLENT night of sleep. He woke up very briefly at 3 and 5 – and slept until 7. It was sweet. He’s still snotty and he’s coughing a bit, but I think he’s coming around the bend.

This morning our cat Parker jumped up on my lap while Noah and I were sitting at the table eating breakfast. I almost overdosed on cuteness when Noah very insistently tried to feed Parker some Cheerios. And he wasn’t taking no for an answer. He just kept shoving that Cheerio in Parkers face until Parker started batting at his hand with his paw. It was near disgustingly adorable. The boy really does love that cat and luckily Parker is very tolerant of his affections. After breakfast Noah kept following Parker around and literally throwing himself over the cat and hugging him. Parker would get a little irritated and scurry out of reach for a second before remembering that overwhelming attention was better than no attention at all.

Tomorrow morning I pick up my ten year old sister Jessica. For those of you not following my very disjointed family tree – Jess is the youngest child of my father, who has four kids with four different women. Unfortunately my Dad hasn’t seen Jessica in many years - it’s a far too complicated, sad and maddening story to relay so I’ll leave it at that. But in the past I’ve made an effort to see her regularly and be a constant part of her life in which there are few constants. Shamefully I haven’t seen her in six months. I can try and place the blame on the fact that it’s difficult to drive an hour away to pick her up and bring her back to Philly when you have a baby that doesn’t like being in the car, and on the fact that she’s moved (again) and she’s ten and has started having more of a social life, and on the fact that I’ve been seeing a lot more of my Dad lately which makes it more complicated for me to see Jessica. All of those things are the case, but none of them are a good excuse. I feel really awful about it, and I should. I just hope she doesn’t feel as awful about it and me as I do.

I think the boy’s snuffling has woken him up from his nap. I best go get him and ready us both for the adventure of a lifetime – the grocery store.

3 comments:

hazel said...

I'm sure she doesn't spend a tenth of the time worrying about it that you do. but I am sure she misses you, too. looking forward to seeing her on sunday at baby disco redux!

Missuz J said...

I hope you have a nice time with your sis. Sounds like she's had a rough time. I bet she'll go nuts over that sweet boy of yours!

lonna said...

I hope that you have a great time with your sister. I agree with Patrice that you probably think about it more than she does. She's lucky to have you. Not too many 10 year olds probably have adult siblings that really care.

I love that Noah wants to feed Parker Cheerios. That's just so sweet.