Caring - Day 1.

Start like mean to go on - all caring and active.

Got Okaasan to have a bath this morning. Months and months since  she has done that. But no negativity about it: I just ran the bath for her, heated up the room, set out towels on the chair and called her with the suggestion that we'd talked about it already - "bath is ready now!".
She got up and fussed around getting stuff together. And then spent a good hour in the bathroom, washed her body and her own hair.

I also sewed the hem of her trousers so she won't fall over it. She can do this herself, but I don't want this job sitting undone for days on the table - it is just simply easier to do it myself. Even with my sewing skills :-)


Gave her lunch and a bit of chat. White lie excuse about "going to a friend's birthday party, shouldn't eat too much..."

Actually went downtown, had lunch quietly in a coffee shop and studied kanji...and then saw a great movie starring Helen Hunt called "The Sessions", about handicapped people and sexual awakening.

Came home. Cleared snow. Cooked dinner.
Ate with Okaasan and heard her stories about going to Ayre's Rock and New York to see the Statue of Liberty. Sometimes the stories got mixed up...I don't think tours to the statue give their customers breakfast before climbing the statue!!! And I'm pretty sure there aren't camel rides in New York.

It's been sometime since I've heard Okaasan waffle round and round in these old stories. Same old stuff. Repeats and repeats and repeats. Yujiro never shows enough interest in her chat to let her do more than two tellings of the same event.
I let her go on and on: 6 or 7 or 8 times....the dementia books say this is good. As long as you can muster up enough interest to give reactions when required. So I let her go on and on.

Well, I do at the moment. It's only Day 1.
By the end of next week I'll be cutting her off after two tellings.

Tomorrow I have TWO end of year parties with students. Lunch and dinner. I will leave at 9 am and won't get home till 9 pm or later.
Lunch delivery is ordered. For dinner I am going to set out oden, a kind of simmered pot of stuff, because I think Okaasan can switch on the table top cooker for that. It's a one pot dinner.

AND! I am going to ask Okaasan to feed the cats.
Rather than organise a cat sitter. Or leave the poor little monsters to starve for a few hours.
I'm going to give Okaasan two packets of dried food and a note, and ask her to put some food down on the stairs for the cats about 5 pm.
I think she can do it. We jokingly call the cats "Neko-sama", which is a very polite form of Japanese - and Okaasan generally enjoys watching the cats and what they do. I think she can open a pack of food and put it on a plate. Give her some responsibility.

Got to go to bed now...
Double party tomorrow. GOnna be a tough day.