Another Saturday night. Church and IHOP, of course. Deena called today as she does every week. Mom takes the call and mostly connects to her. Today was no different. At dinner, Mom told me that Deenie called and said she was going to visit. Joe and I went along with it and Mom continued to ramble about Deena and having two girls who are all grown up now and have babies. When I asked how she knew Deena, Mom said that "she was always with us up there". She had no idea how old Deena was or what she looked like and "who knows what color her hair is." We had this conversation twice during the dinner there.
The day started out with me finding my pizzelle iron on the extra bed in her room and asking her why it was in her room. She said it was hers. I advised her that it was not hers but mine, and I had gotten it from my birthday a couple years ago and went to her room to find her iron. I found it in the back of the closet where I am sure she hid it so the short fat girl would not borrow it again. Later, Mom brought out her iron and put it on the kitchen counter saying that someone had given it to her and she didn't know how to use it, so if I wanted it, it was mine. Joe began trying to unravel all of it for her but after only a moment, saw that she was lost and left it alone.
I also want to add just a couple of excerpts from the journal this week:
Tuesday: "so far resisting all my efforts to keep her on a positive note. She's having a negative day. She went in Julie's room and got an attitude when I told her "we can't be in there." I locked the door. She made another attempt to go in. When she couldn't get in, she looked at me very disgusted, and said, "well, that woman will go in there. Julie used to live in there!" She is also agitated about her shoes. "Some men and women went in the room and took the ones she likes." I reminded her that she gave a lot of them away. To sum it all up, she has had an agitated hands on the hips attitude kind of day."
Friday: Mom was asking about Becky's granddaughter's baby - "maybe they are "twelves" she said, meaning twins. That took her back in time when her mom and dad had twins. Her dad was an alcoholic and mean to her . He made her take care of the babies. They had no car so she and her mom had to walk the babies to the doctor. That where they told them the baby boy was going to die. I sense some guilt on her part because she said "I was holding the little girl and dad he was an alcoholic, kept telling me to take car of the boy. I told him okay, dad, but I'm holding the little girl. I tried to take care of both of them."
Yes, Bonnie and Deena are planning to visit on Feb. 17. I called Bonnie to suggest it and it all came together. I know it will be a different kind of visit and Mom won't connect with the fact that she is our mother and she has three daughters. But she will most certainly enjoy the visit and Bonnie and Deena will have a few moments to share in and remember this part of her life.
Everyone is in bed but me and considering how "cranky" I was this morning, I guess I had better get there as well. Thanks for listening. Love you all.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
A WINDOW ON HER WORLD
Good Sunday Morning! Everyone is still in bed except the dogs and me. So far it is a good time to collect my thoughts from over the past few days and try to put them down here.
Sometime last year I purchased a regular planner calendar that was a week-at-a-glance and had about 10 lines or so next to times of the day. This is how Becky made notes about Mom's day so I would know what time she ate, what she ate, her demeanor during the day, problems, successes, outings, interaction, etc. Ten lines was not enough to capture all of that, so when I went through some of Mom's things that we brought over from the storage unit, I found a couple of empty journals - the books with empty pages. Becky began using one of them each day and has been doing a great job of writing about Mom's day rather than "reporting" on it. In order to communicate what our "norm" is, I want to transfer some of it here from over the past week or so.
Monday, Jan. 4th: (Becky writes) Marge is having a normal day. Her speech is still mostly mumbo jumbo, but at times , just as plain as day. She now mostly call Heidi, Dinky. Her memory of getting her nails done are that this lady sat at the table and said 'put your hand on her' and then painted my nails, but next time I'm telling her no, because this color is pretty, but I've never had it before. Off and on all morning she kept getting in the cookie jar and nonni jar, so I put them up.
Tuesday, Jan. 5th: (I write) Up at 6:30. Joe gave her breakfast and pills. No Tylenol. No coffee. Shower and Tylenol by 7:30. (Becky writes) Lunch at 2:00 from Chicken Express. She helped move chairs for me to clean carpet, went to garage and I steered her back in the house, pulled a chair up and we talked while I was shampooing. She dusted the chest and looked through it, said it was her grandmothers. She wants it back under the table so children won't play on it. At 3:10 we treated ourselves to a scoop of ice cream and brownie. At 3:50 she had coffee with two cookies.
Wednesday, Jan. 6th: (Becky writes) Morning hours she was active and receptive but words are still oleo. She rocked Heidi and sang. She sat in the memory room and showed me pictures and who they were (her version). She sat at the dining table and showed me the crystal again. (I had unpacked about 6 or 8 pieces of crystal that we moved down here and and it was on the table.)...looked at pictures in living area and went to Julie's room and I asked her to come back in the living area. After she rested she was eager to go pick Julie up. We had some "out there" story telling today.
Excerpts from some other days:
She's been in a good mood all day but mostly quiet and confused. When asked to put on a jacket, she put her house coat on. She has been busy looking at things throughout the house all day.
Not real talkative but receptive and cheerful and alert. Wants to clean Julie's room so I stay with her while she folds things. Reception not as good as earlier. When I asked her if she wanted 1 or 2 nonni's she never could grasp what I was asking even when I held up 1 or 2 fingers. She still has on yesterday's clothes. I'm still working on that. (at 1:00p.m.)
We sat outside for a while and watched the birds and made things out of the clouds.
Today she is wearing her name tag. She has shown concern for Julie all day but I've insisted she not go in her room.
As far as this journal goes, she says it's no body's business what we do during the day "we can take care of ourselves." She said she wishes people knew that she was old enough to decide what she wants.
Mon. Jan. 11th: This afternoon she asked who the lady was that was here. When I told her it was Julie, she said "but we didn't go get her and bring her here." When I explained that she didn't go to work she said , "she's too small to work. She's just a little girl and measured her height at about 3 feet. She remembers her coming down the stairs, closing her door and coming into "the" room. I told her she 's grown up now and her response was that the woman was to big to be Julie. Then she focused on the trunk. She wants to take it to her room but said "they won't let me." She hung onto a birthday card for awhile but had no idea who the person was.
Tues. Jan. 12: ...been a struggle to keep her out of Julie's room. We made muffins while she tried again to talk me into letting her in Julie's room.
Thurs. Jan. 14: ...words are mixed up and reception is still slow but is eventually able to grasp what I'm saying. Issue is Julie. "our Julie is little, what happened to her?" I tell her she is grown now but she just gets this confused look and shrugs her shoulders. She dwelled on the crystal for awhile referring to it as worth a lot of money. She wonders what "they" are going to do with it. She's absorbed a lot recently by going through drawers, cabinets, trunk. She refers to most things as some thing her grandmother gave her. She doesn't want anyone taking it. About 1:30 she tapped me on the shoulder with tears in her eyes and said "they won't let me have my things out of the trunk. ...started verbalizing about the license plate on the wall (said it was from the car she wrecked), the light fixture in the dining room, the bowl on top of the hutch "from Italy". She said "I don't have any kids, but if I did, I would like to be able to show them these things, but someone in this house took them from me.
Fri. Jan. 15: Wow, the last 45 minutes have been tense. We were having a stand-off and I won. I told her if she didn't put on clean clothes and change her P&P we were not going to get Julie. Boy did she stand her ground. I finally said "never mind, I will call Cheryl and tell her we won't be picking up Julie today." I walked out of the room and watched her. I heard her say "OK, fine, let's go do it. She's not happy about it but she's clean.
I know, I don't write for a week or more and then I dump all of it at once. But didn't the different colors make it more interesting? Since I began this, Mom has been up and I gave her breakfast. When I am sitting here at the computer, she often brings things one at a time from her room to show me. This morning when Mom finished her PB&J, she brought her little bird that chirps to show to me. We had to make it chirp and feed it the little bottle she has. Then it was her baby who is a good baby and does not cry. I love on the baby and Mom puts her back to bed in the cradle. It is all quiet again so I am thinking she is back in bed also. It is after 9 and time to get dressed myself and get on with the day. Thanks for looking through this little window on Mom's life and keeping us all in your thoughts and prayers!
Sometime last year I purchased a regular planner calendar that was a week-at-a-glance and had about 10 lines or so next to times of the day. This is how Becky made notes about Mom's day so I would know what time she ate, what she ate, her demeanor during the day, problems, successes, outings, interaction, etc. Ten lines was not enough to capture all of that, so when I went through some of Mom's things that we brought over from the storage unit, I found a couple of empty journals - the books with empty pages. Becky began using one of them each day and has been doing a great job of writing about Mom's day rather than "reporting" on it. In order to communicate what our "norm" is, I want to transfer some of it here from over the past week or so.
Monday, Jan. 4th: (Becky writes) Marge is having a normal day. Her speech is still mostly mumbo jumbo, but at times , just as plain as day. She now mostly call Heidi, Dinky. Her memory of getting her nails done are that this lady sat at the table and said 'put your hand on her' and then painted my nails, but next time I'm telling her no, because this color is pretty, but I've never had it before. Off and on all morning she kept getting in the cookie jar and nonni jar, so I put them up.
Tuesday, Jan. 5th: (I write) Up at 6:30. Joe gave her breakfast and pills. No Tylenol. No coffee. Shower and Tylenol by 7:30. (Becky writes) Lunch at 2:00 from Chicken Express. She helped move chairs for me to clean carpet, went to garage and I steered her back in the house, pulled a chair up and we talked while I was shampooing. She dusted the chest and looked through it, said it was her grandmothers. She wants it back under the table so children won't play on it. At 3:10 we treated ourselves to a scoop of ice cream and brownie. At 3:50 she had coffee with two cookies.
Wednesday, Jan. 6th: (Becky writes) Morning hours she was active and receptive but words are still oleo. She rocked Heidi and sang. She sat in the memory room and showed me pictures and who they were (her version). She sat at the dining table and showed me the crystal again. (I had unpacked about 6 or 8 pieces of crystal that we moved down here and and it was on the table.)...looked at pictures in living area and went to Julie's room and I asked her to come back in the living area. After she rested she was eager to go pick Julie up. We had some "out there" story telling today.
Excerpts from some other days:
She's been in a good mood all day but mostly quiet and confused. When asked to put on a jacket, she put her house coat on. She has been busy looking at things throughout the house all day.
Not real talkative but receptive and cheerful and alert. Wants to clean Julie's room so I stay with her while she folds things. Reception not as good as earlier. When I asked her if she wanted 1 or 2 nonni's she never could grasp what I was asking even when I held up 1 or 2 fingers. She still has on yesterday's clothes. I'm still working on that. (at 1:00p.m.)
We sat outside for a while and watched the birds and made things out of the clouds.
Today she is wearing her name tag. She has shown concern for Julie all day but I've insisted she not go in her room.
As far as this journal goes, she says it's no body's business what we do during the day "we can take care of ourselves." She said she wishes people knew that she was old enough to decide what she wants.
Mon. Jan. 11th: This afternoon she asked who the lady was that was here. When I told her it was Julie, she said "but we didn't go get her and bring her here." When I explained that she didn't go to work she said , "she's too small to work. She's just a little girl and measured her height at about 3 feet. She remembers her coming down the stairs, closing her door and coming into "the" room. I told her she 's grown up now and her response was that the woman was to big to be Julie. Then she focused on the trunk. She wants to take it to her room but said "they won't let me." She hung onto a birthday card for awhile but had no idea who the person was.
Tues. Jan. 12: ...been a struggle to keep her out of Julie's room. We made muffins while she tried again to talk me into letting her in Julie's room.
Thurs. Jan. 14: ...words are mixed up and reception is still slow but is eventually able to grasp what I'm saying. Issue is Julie. "our Julie is little, what happened to her?" I tell her she is grown now but she just gets this confused look and shrugs her shoulders. She dwelled on the crystal for awhile referring to it as worth a lot of money. She wonders what "they" are going to do with it. She's absorbed a lot recently by going through drawers, cabinets, trunk. She refers to most things as some thing her grandmother gave her. She doesn't want anyone taking it. About 1:30 she tapped me on the shoulder with tears in her eyes and said "they won't let me have my things out of the trunk. ...started verbalizing about the license plate on the wall (said it was from the car she wrecked), the light fixture in the dining room, the bowl on top of the hutch "from Italy". She said "I don't have any kids, but if I did, I would like to be able to show them these things, but someone in this house took them from me.
Fri. Jan. 15: Wow, the last 45 minutes have been tense. We were having a stand-off and I won. I told her if she didn't put on clean clothes and change her P&P we were not going to get Julie. Boy did she stand her ground. I finally said "never mind, I will call Cheryl and tell her we won't be picking up Julie today." I walked out of the room and watched her. I heard her say "OK, fine, let's go do it. She's not happy about it but she's clean.
I know, I don't write for a week or more and then I dump all of it at once. But didn't the different colors make it more interesting? Since I began this, Mom has been up and I gave her breakfast. When I am sitting here at the computer, she often brings things one at a time from her room to show me. This morning when Mom finished her PB&J, she brought her little bird that chirps to show to me. We had to make it chirp and feed it the little bottle she has. Then it was her baby who is a good baby and does not cry. I love on the baby and Mom puts her back to bed in the cradle. It is all quiet again so I am thinking she is back in bed also. It is after 9 and time to get dressed myself and get on with the day. Thanks for looking through this little window on Mom's life and keeping us all in your thoughts and prayers!
Sunday, January 3, 2010
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2010
Happy New Year! I have heard a lot of people say that they are happy to see 2009 go and are looking forward to a better year for 2010. What we have learned here is that time is irrelevant. It doesn't matter what year it is. It doesn't matter what month or day it is. Each day is unique and holds its own challenges and rewards. Each day we wake up is a good day! That is Mom's philosophy and it is a good one. We can't change (or remember) yesterday so today is the day to make a difference.
Mom loves going to church! It has become slightly more of a challenge lately as she likes to socialize more than pray! Especially if children sit near us. And of course there are at least two opportunities during the service to "visit" with people - at the beginning with Brother Paul tells us to turn and greet our neighbors and later when Deacon Gary tells us to share a sign of peace. Redirecting her and telling her to turn around and pay attention is reminiscent of bringing children to church. As we pass babies or small ones, I tell Mom "no touching" and steer her away. Before long, I'll have to talk to the lady in charge of the church nursery and see if she is too old to go in there during services!
Of course we went to IHOP afterwards. They have different seasonal promotions and the most recent one here has eggnog pancakes, pumpkin spice pancakes and pecan pie pancakes among other things. Mom has been having the pecan pie pancakes instead of the usual strawberry.
This past week, Mom has been bringing things from her room to show me (over and over again) and to talk about them. Many of the things are items she made when she was at Tanglewood and had stashed away so that no one would take them without paying for them. This week it has been small Christmas ornaments she painted and several small tote bags that she painted. She brought the tote bags out again yesterday so I suggested that she bring them with us to church to give to people there. Mom did bring them but decided to leave them in the car. At IHOP I decided those bags were not coming home with us, so I took them in with us and "facilitated" her giving three of them to the three waitresses there - all of whom know us. That left two unclaimed and Mom continued to try to communicate to the girls about giving these bags to "the others". There really were no others there and I knew that before we left Mom would be headed to strangers in the restaurants and/or the cooks in the kitchen with these bags. This all leads up to my big confession: there are times that I totally take advantage of her muddled memory and thinking and this was one of those times. When Mom was distracted, I slid those last two bags out of sight and carefully kept them so until we got home and I could tuck them away. Mom has not questioned it and I am sure that in her heart and mind, she gave the good people at IHOP, all of those hand painted tote bags.
I have used this same strategy when giving her the same clothes that she has had for years. This occurred to my totally by accident when I brought out the winter clothes this year. I washed them and took them to her to put away and she thought I had been shopping and bought her new clothes. I went with it and took the hugs and thank-yous. It was easier than explaining it. Since then, I have given her the same new clothes several times.
Today Mom has been up and had her breakfast of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Let me also tell you that this is no ordinary PB&J. Mom fixes her own sandwich with about a half inch of peanut butter one one piece of bread and about two heaping tablespoons of strawberry jam on the other piece. That's breakfast along with a dozen pills. And she swallow ALL of the pills with at once with one gulf of water! Mom usually has the PB&J and a couple Nonnies to dunk in her coffee but this morning I made fresh biscuits which she also ate with some jam. She, Joe and Julie are all back in bed for the first of their Sunday snoozes.
With everyone otherwise occupied, I will get the kitchen floor mopped. Joe has already run a couple loads of laundry. Four dogs, two birds and a turtle have been fed also. And no, there is no partridge in a pear tree if that is what your heard.
Just know that we are all well and extremely blessed! Each new day! Let's not wait until 2011 to have a good year. God has a magnificent plan for us and we just have to wait for it to unfold to His glory - each new day. Do I hear an AMEN?
Mom loves going to church! It has become slightly more of a challenge lately as she likes to socialize more than pray! Especially if children sit near us. And of course there are at least two opportunities during the service to "visit" with people - at the beginning with Brother Paul tells us to turn and greet our neighbors and later when Deacon Gary tells us to share a sign of peace. Redirecting her and telling her to turn around and pay attention is reminiscent of bringing children to church. As we pass babies or small ones, I tell Mom "no touching" and steer her away. Before long, I'll have to talk to the lady in charge of the church nursery and see if she is too old to go in there during services!
Of course we went to IHOP afterwards. They have different seasonal promotions and the most recent one here has eggnog pancakes, pumpkin spice pancakes and pecan pie pancakes among other things. Mom has been having the pecan pie pancakes instead of the usual strawberry.
This past week, Mom has been bringing things from her room to show me (over and over again) and to talk about them. Many of the things are items she made when she was at Tanglewood and had stashed away so that no one would take them without paying for them. This week it has been small Christmas ornaments she painted and several small tote bags that she painted. She brought the tote bags out again yesterday so I suggested that she bring them with us to church to give to people there. Mom did bring them but decided to leave them in the car. At IHOP I decided those bags were not coming home with us, so I took them in with us and "facilitated" her giving three of them to the three waitresses there - all of whom know us. That left two unclaimed and Mom continued to try to communicate to the girls about giving these bags to "the others". There really were no others there and I knew that before we left Mom would be headed to strangers in the restaurants and/or the cooks in the kitchen with these bags. This all leads up to my big confession: there are times that I totally take advantage of her muddled memory and thinking and this was one of those times. When Mom was distracted, I slid those last two bags out of sight and carefully kept them so until we got home and I could tuck them away. Mom has not questioned it and I am sure that in her heart and mind, she gave the good people at IHOP, all of those hand painted tote bags.
I have used this same strategy when giving her the same clothes that she has had for years. This occurred to my totally by accident when I brought out the winter clothes this year. I washed them and took them to her to put away and she thought I had been shopping and bought her new clothes. I went with it and took the hugs and thank-yous. It was easier than explaining it. Since then, I have given her the same new clothes several times.
Today Mom has been up and had her breakfast of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Let me also tell you that this is no ordinary PB&J. Mom fixes her own sandwich with about a half inch of peanut butter one one piece of bread and about two heaping tablespoons of strawberry jam on the other piece. That's breakfast along with a dozen pills. And she swallow ALL of the pills with at once with one gulf of water! Mom usually has the PB&J and a couple Nonnies to dunk in her coffee but this morning I made fresh biscuits which she also ate with some jam. She, Joe and Julie are all back in bed for the first of their Sunday snoozes.
With everyone otherwise occupied, I will get the kitchen floor mopped. Joe has already run a couple loads of laundry. Four dogs, two birds and a turtle have been fed also. And no, there is no partridge in a pear tree if that is what your heard.
Just know that we are all well and extremely blessed! Each new day! Let's not wait until 2011 to have a good year. God has a magnificent plan for us and we just have to wait for it to unfold to His glory - each new day. Do I hear an AMEN?
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