Bye bye 2012

New Year's Eve in Japan....noodles with fried bits of fish and batter on top.

And bad. Really bad singing shows on TV.

 

 

So here we are, another year of being an Oyomesan to Okaasan. A good year really, none of the huge dramas of the past. Family fights, peeing in trash boxes, accusations and violence...

And of course the BIG success of getting Yujiro to face up to his mum's condition and take her for a dementia assessment with a doc, and then assessed for day care...and finally...finally on December 25th - we may have found a day care center she likes.

Hope she goes again in January.

 

Okaasan's dementia? Well, it IS worse than a year ago. Just watching her trying to get ready to go out shows me that. Her personal care: hair and body washing is less, her selection of clothes is getting strange, she is burning pans and losing stuff. She doesn't do so much personal laundry now. She buys very random things.

But we are keeping her on a steady course of routine life.

 

Today, last day of the year I went to see The Hobbit downtown and spent a few hours with The Cutest Baby and his mum, then home to "do" New Year's Eve with Okaasan.

Easy actually: just instant noodles and supermarket fried fish bits topping with cut up long onions, some pumpkin and salad.

Okaasan told me on and on about the meaning of the noodles and how she used to go to Kamakura with her husband, and then back home by January 4th to cook a massive dinner for all the office staff. I'm guessing this was before she had the kids, so maybe mid-1950s? A different world to now.

Now, she is sitting across the table from a foreign woman who has just made instant noodles and heated up supermarket stuff. And there are no other family or guests.

 

Thankyou all SO much for big support via this blog this year. The whole day care assessment saga and final success. It really IS time to get outside help for Okaasan and your comments here gave me the bloody-mindedness to fight on.

 

And on into 2013.....on and on and on....but at least onwards with day care manager support.

 

Now, where's my chocolate? Or can I explode a marshmallow snowman in the microwave?

 

Bye bye 2012 :-)