Here lies Mali. She was a good cat.

Mali and Vi, 2/3/12

In an episode of The Berenstain Bears, a pet dies and the cubs make a sign for its grave. Augie and ViMae decided that when our aging cat died, they would make a similar sign for her.

Today is that day.

We got Mali in August 1994, the weekend we delivered Abby to college. We named her for her birthplace, a farm in Malcom, Iowa. Our other three cats were getting old and slow. Mali was feisty and fearless. She managed to get Macaroon to join in some of her games, and she learned that Lucy and Chatsy had no sense of humor. She was an awesome tree climber, back when we let her out, and she chased off neighbor cats twice her size. When we stopped letting her roam, she loved just sitting nearby while I worked in the garden.

For the last few years, Mali was our only cat, and she grew into the role nicely. She stayed under the bed when the children were babies, but in the last couple of years, as they became more like the adults she'd always known, she had made friends with them, too.

Mali in 2005

A year ago, Peter woke me early one morning to say she'd had a stroke and seemed to be on her way out. A couple of hours later she was back to normal, but she began to lose weight and to take on some nasty old-cat habits like ignoring the litter box.

Cats, when they are dying, will often try to get away to die alone. Instead, Mali followed us around all week, crawling into our arms at every opportunity. We knew her time had come, and we had been discussing it with the children.

This morning Peter found her dead. He cleaned her up a bit and uncovered the hole he and Augie had dug in the garden. The kids came over after swimming lessons for the "funeral."

Augie, ViMae, Mali 2/3/12

They didn't want to touch her, but they looked at her lifeless body for a long while and talked about what a good cat she'd been. Then we tucked her into an old pillow case and laid her in the hole. I thanked her for giving us such good memories. Vi got sad and went to her mom's arms. Augie was proud and very serious as he and Pa filled the hole with the dirt Pa had stored in the garage. Then Augie picked up the sign he'd made this morning and laid it atop the dirt. Augie hates practicing letters, but today he wrote his first two full sentences: "Here lies Mali. She was a good cat."

The sign in place, we all came inside and had juice and snacks. That, after all, is what you do at a funeral. We also made plans for getting a couple of kittens this coming summer, after we've replaced the upstairs carpet and gotten rid of as much old cat scent as possible.

As Augie pointed out, it's okay. We will have lots of fun with our new kittens.

A new kind of retirement program

ViMae and Augie love zoos...the kind they visit and the kind they build with Legos. This afternoon she was telling us about some ways that zookeepers care for the animals.

Pa: Are you going to be a zookeeper?

Vi: No, ballerina.

Pa: Is Augie going to be a zookeeper?

Vi: No.

Pa: Who will take care of the zoo animals, then?

Vi: Just the ones who are already zookeepers.

Grandma: What will happen when all those people get too old to work?

Vi: They will go to work at different zoos where the animals are too old. 

Eat dessert first...

Life is uncertain; eat dessert first.

A week ago, I updated my Blogger profile to declare this my motto for 2012. I'd had something more serious in mind, but I couldn't quite settle on the wording. I realized there was some ambiguity in my goals, and I decided I was okay with that. Hence this flippant motto. Or is it?

I don't want a lot of goals right now. Caring for my grandkids - growing with them - is my top priority, as it is for my hubby. Our days of full-time daycare will end when the kids start school (Augie begins all-day kindergarten in fall 2012 and ViMae in 2013). With this limited window of opportunity, we intend to continue to throw ourselves into the task.

To us, that means responding to the kids - to their interests and passions, to their developmental phases, to their behaviors that call for praise or encouragement or, um, coaching. We take the initiative to expose them to lots of things, but we're always watching for what seems to capture the attention of one or both, and before you know it we're buying books or finding YouTube videos or researching field trips.

They liked the birds at the feeders, so we got bird books (and an iPad app) and learned a lot about birds ourselves. They enjoyed Lego Duplos, so we amassed the world's largest collection of zoo pieces. They love books; our living room overflows with them. Augie drummed on every surface in our house, testing the sound qualities; we got him a drum kit and then expanded it with "wooden blocks like Karen Carpenter's" and "a floor tom like Gene Krupa's" and "a ride cymbal like Levon Helm's." (YouTube really is a fabulous resource.) They like building forts out of cardboard in the living room, staging impromptu marching-band performances through the house, and dancing in front of the mirror, and they insist that we participate.

So here's the thing. My goal is to contribute everything I can to their happiness and development. That means being playful, curious, flexible, loving, and healthy. I was going to make it my stated goal to exercise more in order to build up my stamina to keep up with the kids. But that felt pedestrian and uninspiring.

I've had a lifetime of serious goals. Self-improvement goals, measurable work goals, always goals. For most of my life I felt obligated to do my work first, before I could play. I didn't always DO that, but the obligation weighed on me, so even when I did play, I often felt guilty. Over the past year, a full year of retirement, I've let go of that sense of obligation. I work hard while the kids are with us, and then I mostly do what I want. My motto for 2011 was "Follow your passion, feed your bliss." I threw myself into life with them and allowed myself the time to revel in it.

I've become newly aware that time is fleeting and we are not guaranteed either time or good health. "Life is uncertain." 

So, even as I do what I can to preserve Peter's and my health and to build my strength and stamina, I'm going to "eat dessert first" - figuratively. I'm going to do those things that seem most important, or most rewarding, or most meaningful to others. Sometimes those things will be the most fun - like dessert. Sometimes they may not be quite so appealing, but I hope they will be memorable, and that as a whole they will make a wonderful and lasting course, following the entrees and sides dishes that have made up my life to date.

In other words, and I know I'm pushing the metaphor beyond all appropriate limits, this time in my life is the chocolate-souffle-apple-crisp-creme-brulee topping off years of chicken breasts and broccoli. Yum.  

My iFamily had an iChristmas!

iPad2, photographed using my iPhone

Yes, it's late to be posting about holiday gifts. But I've been busy. And distracted. Specifically, I've been setting up and playing with my new iPad2 and new iPhone. And setting up two older iPads for other family members who happily got them as hand-me-downs. As if that weren't enough, I've been installing and playing with my new versions of Photoshop (for photo editing) and Dreamweaver (for creating web pages).

It's exhausting, I tell you.

Okay, it's mostly fun. Yes, I'm the person who thought the iPad was a ridiculous idea, who was heard to say, "Who needs a lesser version of a laptop?"

That was before I knew about apps, and before I realized that an iPad can slip into my large purse, whereas my laptop needed its own case and about broke my shoulder. The iPad 2 is lighter and faster, and it has built-in cameras for Skyping or FaceTiming.

iPhone, taken using iPad

Which brings me to my new iPhone. Again, I never thought I'd want one, but now that I have it I love it. In the past, I didn't use my mobile phone much, and frankly I've barely learned how to make or accept a call because the rest of it is so much fun. I've loaded lots of apps, and I've tried out the camera, which is far superior to that in the iPad. I will love carrying this around, using some of the same apps I use on iPad and finding lots of new ways to use it, too.

iPod, taken using iPhone

I also have an iPod Touch, the first of the iDevices I acquired. Frankly, I used it as an mp3 player and never explored all the ways it could serve me using the internet. One reason: it didn't have a phone. If you have to carry a phone, you're perhaps not going to bother also carrying an iPod. Now that I can load applications to one, two, or all three of these gadgets, I might find that I use the iPod more as well. But mostly it has taken the place of our old 100-disc CD changer, which bit the dust sometime during the last year. Since Peter loaded all the music to electronic files, we don't need to replace the bulky changer. Ain't life grand?

One of these days I might talk about a few of my favorite applications. But before I do, let me ask: Do you have an iDevice or something similar? If so, what are your favorite apps?

--Nancy