Have you guys ever heard about the wooden bowl story? In case you haven’t here is a quick summary.
A frail old grandfather moved in with his son, daughter-in-law and his 4 year-old grandson. The grandfather’s hands would shake and he had difficulty moving around.
Each night the family would sit together and eat a family dinner. The grandfathers hands would shake so bad that he would spill food off of his plate and spill milk from his glass. The parent’s of the boy would get very frustrated with the grandfather and sometimes yell at him for the messes he made. One night they came up with a solution, they would put his food in a wooden bowl. That would ensure he wouldn’t break anything. Unfortunately the messes continued and it bothered the adults of the family so much so that they bought a small table and set it in the corner of the kitchen. The grandfather would eat there alone.
After a couple weeks of the grandson witnessing this the father saw him playing with some wood scraps. His father asked him what he was doing. The little boy responded, “I’m making dishes for you and mommy to eat off of when you get older.”
As I’m sure you can imagine, this shook the parents to their core. From that night on, the grandfather was able to eat at the family table and the messes didn’t seem to bother anyone after that.
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I have little dogs. In case you haven’t read about them before, their names are Barks A LOT and Barks EVEN MORE aka Lucinda and Lea. They are 14 & 13 year old, red, miniature pinchers. Lucinda is a regular size min pin, Lea was sold to us as a “teacup” size min pin, but then she met dog food and now she looks like an overstuffed wood tick (large body, small head) with ears that stand straight up and I swear can hear noises from other planets.
Being our only kids for 6+ years, they’ve been pretty spoiled. For instance, they don’t go outside when it’s too hot, too cold, raining, or snowing or any weather really that isn’t sunny and gorgeous. Living in Minnesota they probably live in the fresh air for a month out of the year.
You might be thinking…where do they go to the bathroom? Well, when they aren’t peeing on the floors or worse (#2) then they go on potty pads. We lived in an apartment when we first got them and it was easier to train them to use the potty pads. In hindsight it was a terrible idea. When their eyesight goes, which it has, they can’t seem to find the pads.
The girls used to sleep with us, but then incontinence set in and we decided to choose sleep over waking up a few times in the middle of the night to change the sheets and mattress protector. We put their doggie bed right in front of a heater vent, which seemed to work. But it turns out, if they don’t wet OUR bed then they pee all over the floors.
We have the old school real wood wooden floors and we just can’t have them ruining them.
My Aunt and Mother-in-Law came for a visit and my Aunt suggested we keep them in the kitchen. That way our floors wouldn’t be ruined and we could place potty pads down for them. Have you ever had the, ‘OMG, that makes perfect sense, why didn’t I think of that sooner’ moments? This was one of those moments.
The last few weeks we’ve purchased some baby gates with the doors on them and installed them on the entry points of the kitchen. We moved their bed and tried to make it a nice place for them.
The problem is, someone told me that wooden bowl story many years ago and it’s ALL I can think about. I am teaching my little men how to treat elders! Put them in a cage, lie flat diapers down and tell them to BE QUIET when they bark excessively. They look like PRISONERS and Lea, although rotund, can still get her head between the posts on the gates. She’ll pop her head out looking and barking down the hall for help.
I can only feel guilt.
My once precious babies, that I carried around in purses are now spending their remaining time caged within their “home”. Freedom has been taken away from them until it’s nice enough for them to spend sometime outdoors.
What would you do in this situation?
I thought, when I’m home by myself I can let them out. They can have free run of the house and then before the others come home, I can put them back. Then I realized it might be harder and harder to get them back inside when they’ve had a taste of freedom. I did the next best thing…
I sat in meditation about.
The thing is, I really believe we have all the answers we seek right inside of us. We just have to quiet down enough to listen.
The answer came quite quickly.
Mindset.
It’s all about mindset. My little girls are not in a cage, desperately trying to get freed. They are happy, warm and fed, in their gated retirement community. Their perfect retirement house has one level with a bathroom so close, they could lift a leg and pee on it. Not only is the spot a perfect retirement place, BUT they have family ONSITE! How many retirement communities can say that?!
I’m learning adjusting to retirement can be difficult on all family members involved. Even if said family members don’t bring in income, they bring in joy and that is priceless.
Namaste, Jes
Xoxo