The Rest of August - Wren Pics, Ever's Mud Bath, Marlene, and Sleep Talk

I took a picture of Wren after a meal:

Ever had to get in on the action. Little ham:

We had Ella Rondo over for a play date. They wanted to get in our tiny pool, and they wanted it placed at the base of the big slide so they could slide into it. As that portion of the yard is pure dirt, the result was quite the mud bath:

Ella brought popcorn for a snack. Ever ate the leftovers later. That little one can put away a lot of popcorn. We had to use a cushion to block the afternoon sun:

Wrenzo's hair is coming back in. It's really fuzzy, sort of like a baby chick. It looks almost as bad in these pictures as it did before we shaved it, but it's better in real life:

Our neighbor, Marlene Shadel, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer back in May. A neighbor across the street told me about it a couple weeks after the diagnosis. Every time I went in and out of the house I glanced over and thought about how I needed to go over there. It took me a long time, but I finally went. Her daughter, Malinda, answered the door and seemed inclined to turn me away. She checked with Marlene, though, and came back and said Marlene was excited to see me. I had a good, tearful visit with Marlene and then with Malinda. Malinda had been there non-stop since the diagnosis and was physically and emotionally exhausted. I talked with both about faith in an after-life. Malinda said visitors had stopped coming. They were very grateful to see me. I set up a standing date to go over once a week. The idea was for me to sit with Marlene while Malinda got an hour break. It didn't really end up happening that way, but I did get over there a handful of times before Marlene passed away last week. The week before she passed, I spent a couple of hours with Marlene while she slept so that Malinda and her husband could go out to dinner with friends. I was so glad I made those visits and was able to show some support and love to both Marlene and Malinda.

On my second visit, I took a card from Ever. She decorated the front of the the envelope like this (can you spot her name?):

On the back, she wrote Marlene's name:

Marlene loved the card and had it displayed on a little table by her bed until the end.

I've been trying to get to the gym regularly, as has Jim. One Monday we met there after Jim finished work. I took some pictures of Wren as I waited for Jim to finish, trying to capture her Gerber baby-ness:

One night, as I was getting out of bed to feed Wren at 2:20 A.M., Jim said casually, "Yeah, he was focused on trying not to kill her, and she was focused on trying not to die. So it all worked out because they had the same goal." He says some pretty funny things while he's asleep.