I gave grandma lunch. A bowl of cottage cheese, a single serving container of mandarin oranges and a coffee. Just when I sat down in the other room she called me. I got up and went to her. She wanted me to dump the oranges into her bowl of cottage cheese.....................
I try to find humor in this (the kids think it's hilarious) but he is the last "generation" of this kind of dinosaur, I think. I see my boys walking through the door at the end of their work day and seamlessly stepping into "dad-mode" and I KNOW I did something right. My hubs wanted a cold drink at the end of the day, and I always took the cap off the soda for him. He never stepped up into child care at the end of his day--that was MY job.
Tired Reader--you hit a tender spot with a lot of us!! I am also a PT caregiver for my Mother and making her lunch salad is like putting together a puzzle--if you put too many beets in it, she pouts. It's crazy, but it's the crazy I know.
Good place to vent--esp today. Fed hubby 2 meals in bed since he didn't feel well yesterday.
Okay, I'll share my annoying thing for the day. It is when someone says something bothered them and other group members say that they will feel different after their loved one dies. In many instances I think there is unresolved grief issues that may not be relevant to everyone.
Spoon feed her. Ha, I barely even spoonfed my babies back in the day. I gave them a couple of months to figure it out and let them feed themselves.
It took some time to reach this stage. It is easier once it is perfectly clear something has changed. Hardest years were before we had a clue what was going on. At one point I thought my mom was faking and had just figured out a way to have our attention. How wrong I was.
PS. On another note: Our three homes were next to each other. (another tip: We had baby monitors in each house so we could hear when our mom woke up at night. Baby monitors worked from across the street.)
I could practically put that breakfast tray together in my sleep. Now, I just regret that I didn't sit with her while she ate. Couldn't spare the hour at the time - who's got an hour to spare in the morning? But you don't get it back again later.
While standing there...the cat jumped up and mom offered the glass of ice water to the cat!
Guess who drinks the ice water? Cat is apparently so spoiled it requires the water to be ice cold now too!
My plan is to just bring a low ball glass of ice water every so often...whenever I am going to her any way. Save me the time and trouble to deal with it on a separate trip. (Just one more item on the tray.).
Honestly, that cat is a much bigger bother than mom!
Since she has dementia she may have forgotten how to do it, or wasn't confident that she could do it correctly. Or she may have concluded that since she is retired from cooking she shouldn't be doing those kinds of things.
But, yup, being called back to dump oranges onto cottage cheese could definitely be annoying!
She said, then there must be something wrong with your fingers