Where does she go to recuperate from this?
We’ll return to our trip to New Orleans next week — don’t complain, we’re the ones stuck sweltering in the heat and humidity, not you.
Right now, we’re in the middle of a several-weeks stretch with two houseguests — make that two twolegged houseguests and one four-legged houseguest.
We have the three houseguests because one of the two-legged ones has to stay off her legs — both of them — for several weeks.
Our daughter-in-law, Julia, had surgery last week on her ankle, which means she has to stay off her feet for at least a week.
Since Alex happens to be in the middle of his four-week annual training with his Army Reserve unit, it meant she would be home alone with Aiden.
Although I would be the first to say that our grandson is a precocious and gifted two-year-old — as his grandfather, I’m allowed to say that — even I would have to admit that he’s nowhere near ready yet to become a full-time caregiver and nurse. Indeed, the reverse is probably still more true than not.
So it was that our home became a rehabilitation and recuperation center for our daughter-in-law. It’s not quite the same R and R as in the Army, but at least we’re not making Julia do KP, she won’t have to pass a physical test when she’s back on her feet, and she doesn’t have to salute anybody here.
To keep her from going up and down stairs, we turned the computer room downstairs into a bedroom. It meant cleaning the accumulated papers and other things off the top of the piano that’s in there as well, shoving it into a corner of the room and putting up a bed in there.
I’m not sure exactly why, but over the years we seem to have accumulated at least half a dozen different bed frames, along with nearly as many mattresses and box springs. We almost have enough beds in various states of assembly and disassembly to have one for every room in the house — including the bathroom.
Along with Julia and Aiden, we also got their dog, Gizzy, for the duration. That makes the canine population of the house only one less than the human population.
The biggest challenge has been to convince Aiden and Gizzy to stay off of and away from Julia’s recovering leg. In truth, Aiden was probably easier to train than Gizzy, which led to us having to keep Gizzy out of whatever room Julia is in — something we haven’t had to do with Aiden.
Among other things, this recuperation visit did give Aiden a chance to party with his cousins, Ty and Nolan. It seems their aunt graduated from high school earlier this month, and her parents threw her a graduation party over the weekend.
They’re not quite the Three Stooges yet, but together they still can be enough to keep a whole party of adults hopping.
Actually, it was Aiden and Nolan who discovered a pile of dirt in Nolan’s grandparents’ yard. It was enough to keep them occupied for most of the party.
We quickly dissuaded them from trying to bury each other in the dirt, but that didn’t stop them from trying to bury themselves in the dirt individually. If they knew anything about the old Peanuts comic strip, I’d swear they were both doing their best Pigpen imitation, but that’s way before their time.
The party was last Saturday and we were still emptying dirt out of Aiden’s shoes by the middle of the next week.
The doctor told her to stay off her feet for at least a couple of weeks, but with incidents like that, Julia may be tempted to make this rehabilitation and recuperation stint last as long as possible.
