Mother's Day...failure.

Bugger.
Nice little Mother's Day thing planned here last night and it failed.
Okaasan came home so late that we weren't feeling all sweet and kind to the mother-in-our-life.

This going out late and coming home late - it's the thing Okaasan does that pisses me off the most.
Having dinner together at 7 pm is the main Family Time/Communication Time we do every day because in the morning we eat breakfast upstairs and go to work and we usually leave Okaasan food on the kitchen table for her brunch-alone.

Yesterday Yujiro was working. I was home in the morning and then set Okaasan's lunch on the table and headed out to a Japanese dance show with an old student. And no - taking Okaasan to the dance show wasn't an option because the ex-student is a senior herself and I can't look after two old ladies!

I came home at 5 pm. Cleaned up Okaasan's lunch stuff in the kitchen, she almost never does it, just eats and leaves bowls and plates and dirty tissues on the table and kitchen counter.

Yujiro came home at 5.30 pm with a Mother's Day flower arrangement to present at dinner time.

At 5.45 pm - after a whole afternoon spent sitting in front of the Tv - Okaasan decided to go out.

At 6.15 pm I start making dinner. No Okaasan. At 7.30 pm we eat dinner without her.
Okaasan comes back about 8.10 pm just as we are finishing.

And then Yujiro - who sometimes is SUCH a stupid guy - starts talking to her about a flower headpiece she must take to hula dance class tomorrow - starts talking to her about this AS she is walking through the kitchen and entering her room with her hat and coat still on!
So then her mind switches to that topic and not dinner and she starts scuttling around her room in a panic about which flower, which color and why etc....

WHY didn't he wait until later to talk about that? Why? Does he have noodles for brains?
So they are getting themselves in a stressed conversation about hula flowers, I am reheating dinner....Okaasan comes to the table and then goes off AGAIN to look for the flower.
And I say: "No! No! Okaasan, please come and eat your feed while it's hot! Please look for the flower later!!"
In my stress I mix up the words for food and feed - the word for human food and the word for the stuff animals eat. It sounds pretty strange and rude. Yujiro is choking with shock. Okaasan is confused, but comes back to the table.

I've had enough and exit the kitchen. It's almost 8.30 pm by now.
Yujiro calls me back downstairs a few minutes later when he gives Okaasan the flower arrangement, supposedly from us. And I retreat to sanity again upstairs.

Grrrrrr.......these moments I hate. Her going out late and coming home late stretches the whole cooking-dinner-washing up-chatting time into hours......our own evening time is eaten up and we feel forced to sit in the kitchen more when she DOES come home just to give her a bit of human inter-action for the day.
Many dementia experts say that this sun-downing is common - that dementia sufferers get more active/anxious at the end of the day - Yujiro says Okaasan is following her old routine in Saitama of going out late afternoon in the evening cool for shopping and dinner in the local noodle restaurant.
Whatever it is. It's frustrating. She misses the best weather of the day. She often comes home late for 7 pm dinner.
When it's only her and me I don't do it. I'm tougher - in my book if you come home after dinner time you'll get reheated food on the table, but you don't get Cosy Family Time. Not logical I know, she doesn't know WHAT time it is...what she is doing....but...but..I ain't gonna do it.

Grrrr...got that out of my system now. Maybe. Sorry, needed a good venting.

aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh