Day care - refusenik

Want to quit day care.
Don't need to go.
It's spring now, I can walking myself every day to exercise. So I don't need to go to that place twice a week.
And : I don't like one of the noisy, rude people there.
And : last week one of the kitchen staff was carrying her BABY on her back. It's unhygienic.

So. I don't want to go.

Cue small family crisis.
Just when you (and I) thought this blog was gonna curl up and die of boredom.

Aghhhhhh.

And even worse: Dear Son agrees with her and thinks she can quit for spring and summer and go again next winter.
Can she? I don't know. I worry she won't want to go and we'll have the whole getting-Okaasan-to-daycare saga again.

If you are new to this blog, or just need reminding - check out the September to December 2012 postings. Oh, the agony of me pushing him to push her into the mental health assessment and the day care search.
When Okaasan first came to live with us she joined several different Hawaiian dance classes at community centers. But they were all geared towards practicing for performance days and, while she is actually quite good at hula dance, she can't of course learn and remember new dance routines. So she was getting stressed and three? four? dance classes asked us to get her to leave the class because she couldn't keep up. She thought she was being bullied in the classes...
Which is when we realized she needed to move from community dance classes to gentler, same-every-week classes with teachers who didn't pressure.....and that classes at day care would be ideal.
Gentle, fun exercise AND the whole bathtime/care/mental stimulation of going somewhere and meeting people.

But now. No go.

I'm gutted, to be honest.
With her thinking AND his. I have no hope to fight against that.

I accept that Okaasan probably doesn't need day care so much in summer. She lives with family and gets daily interaction with us. She can and does go walking round the local shops and downtown on the subway. She can chat to random shop staff and occasionally the "friend" who she meets in the coffee shop by chance.

Physically it's enough. Mentally it is enough. Really. She has some kind of interaction with people every day. It's great too that she could clearly remember why she doesn't like the current day care place, and could tell her son her opinion and needs.

But I do worry that she'll get out of the routine of going. And that in October we'll have a big fight again about getting her to agree to go again.

Dear Son says she often asks :"Do I go in summer too?" and that this shows she enjoys it, and will go happily in winter. 

For me there is a huge reassurance that someone beyond him and me are involved in the care of Okaasan. That professionals are meeting her regularly and checking that she is doing ok. Having fought hard to get us into the system of support, I don't want to slip out of it.
In winter it is absolutely essential that she goes. He is away for weeks at a time working, and for days and days on end she sits and watches TV and has only me for company for a dinner time 3 times a week.

So. Bad day.
Dear Son will have to meet with the city office day manager for sure, and I guess the day center manager with have to explain why one of her kitchen staff had a baby at work....obviously bad...but..but...
Dear Son thinks she doesn't need it. He wants her to be happy. And she wants to stop going. So, it's a done deal.

I just have to go along with it. 
A little evil voice inside me is saying: maybe her dementia will worsen after a few months of day center absence and THEN he'll see the value of her going. But, in reality I don't think it will. Unless we have a crisis with her legs or teeth again and then it's only he and I struggling to get Okaasan to do stuff.

Anyway. Such is my day.

Oh. And the cat is sick. Vomiting for 72 hours. Spent all day at the vets. Had a barium shot. Poor little bugger. He is home again now. We've had a hard time....the vet isn't really sure why he is throwing up so much. Once - Popo was on top of the book case and was spectacularly sick from a great height.
But this morning - luckily - he felt well enough to go outside and sit in the sunshine.

Spring fever.     Both of them. 　 Cat and Okaasan.