I've been off doing something called Life. Hadn't checked in here for a while, and Comments Awaiting Moderation hadn't forwarded into my email - so there was a little rush of friendly comments when I just logged in here.
Thankyou :-)
And here we are - getting into December and all the usual end-of-year panic.
And.
Skiiiiiing...................................................
Back at the ranch of underpants and old newspapers: Okaasan had a laundry day. A very rare occurrence.
A year? Maybe 2 years ago - she would take some of dirty clothes into the bathroom, either when she was having a bath, or just to do laundry. She'd hand wash everything and rinse them in the bath and spin dry them in the machine. Then she would take the clothes in a bowl into her room or outside to the line and ever so carefully hang them up to dry. Later take them down and fold them up, unfold and refold several times...and leave them around her room to get mixed in with the remaining dirty clothes...
Now: the clothes mount up in the two laundry boxes in her room, and around on the sofa and carpet and table. I sweep in when she is out and grab what I can to do it all in the washing machine and hang them up upstairs in our apartment. I iron/fold and give them back to her. Very occasionally she will wash a pair of underpants, or wash stuff at day care and bring it home wet in a plastic bag.....to be forgotten for days unless I happen to hunt thru the bag.
Last week I tried a different tactic: "Oh Okaasan! Look, your wet clothes from day center! In a bag! What shall we do? Do you want to wash them?"
"Wash clothes? It's too cold...."
I heated the kitchen and bathroom.
"Wash clothes now?"
I gave her the washing powder and bowls.
I put the bags of wet knickers on the carpet in the entrance to her room.
And finally she did.
I say finally, because it turned into a two or three hour event: first she got dressed, then she sorted thru ALL her clothes and tried to decide what was dirty. Then she opened the bags with a few knickers in them, and lots of other stuff and set to on an orgy of handwashing and rinsing and hanging.
Really: hours. I left for work. I left her lunch flasks out. Dear Son came home from ski teaching and Okaasan was still doing it all.
I thought I was encouraging her to just open the bags and wash the few knickers. But once she got the idea of "laundry" in mind she was locked into the Full Wash Cycle. Couldn't stop once started.
It was good for her: mentally and physically. I should prompt her to do it more often. Really. In fact, it made me admit to myself that she should be having a bath at home (and doing laundry) at least once a week. Since she started daycare we haven't been bothering to get her to bath at home. Twice a week she goes to day care. But, we should be making her bath at home at weekends when we are around to check safety etc. We really should. She sits and stares at the Tv for so many hours.
Apart from that? I took her twice to the local supermarket and left her wandering around inside for an hour, with instructions to phone us when she was ready to come home.
Her legs are so much weaker. She walks with a shopping trolley for support. She complains about knee pains. So different from the hours and hours downtown she was doing earlier this year.
Maybe another trip to the laying on of hot hands and chatting treatment?
Actually, although I am still a skeptic about it - I went back to that place myself last week. I had some scary repeats of my thigh earthquakes. Was it stress or dehydration? Don't know. But the young woman with hot hands and a sympathetic ear made me relax.
maybe Okaasan should go back.
:-( Toilet problems are increasing....
The towel that Okaasan is using under her body when sleeping is wet with urine almost every day. I've bought a bedsheet from the drugstore, it looks enough like a sheet that hopefully she won't know what it is for and refuse to use it. It soaks in urine and can be washed easily. ;-(
No comments:
Post a Comment