So that was Christmas...

...and another year almost gone.

I made it to the end of working. Well, classroom working. I still have a massive editing job to do over the holidays which I think I can do with cups of tea and regular supplies of Xmas chocolate..

Christmas came and went, without Okaasan noticing much.
It isn't a big thing for her generation of Japanese, so I didn't feel too guilty to be going out for fun with friends and students.
I decorated the bits of the house she sees - toilet and kitchen, entrance hall. And on Christmas Eve and Day I made her mealtime sitting place at the kitchen table look festive.

Dear Son got back late on Christmas night from work, so after a lot of eating and drinking with friends I cooked him a cheese and potato omelete and shared some TV time with him. He is home for 4 nights in a row, which is in itself a present to us as a couple at this time of year. Ski school schedule change brought him to a ski area nearer home. He'll be here till Tuesday, and then gone again.

Okaasan ok.

Went out with day care helper Christmas Eve and didn't buy up a ton of food. Only a huge cabbage.

She had another toilet accident that evening. I was making Christmas cup cakes for a class, humming carols etc Noticed that she'd been in the toilet ages....she came out looking a bit sheepish...I made gentle helpful noises: "upset stomach?" and she mentioned not quite getting to the toilet in time, but claimed to have cleaned it up.

She hadn't.

But I couldn't break my fruity Chrissmassy cup cake joy with carols to face that on Christmas Eve. I just bundled up the soiled mat (had only been newly cleaned and in place 5 hours!) and carpet tile - and put them in the bathroom to cope with the next day on my way to work.

Oh. And the chair standing and top cupboard exploring.

She's at it again today...

Got a bit testy with me when I said it was dangerous and that the only things up there were unwanted stuff. Told me: Japanese people don't fall off chairs (!!!!!) and that you should always sort through things in case you might need them now.

Aghhh....

I got her into a bath and then did a frantic 20 minutes clear out of the top closet. Put the bags into trash bags for protection and put six bags (each containing about 8 smaller bags!) into the shed in the garden. Left about 3 bags on the floor in her room for her to sort through. Took the closet doors out of their runners and hid them.

Now she can SEE there are no more things up there to reach for. She can sort through the stuff within reach. And hopefully be content enough. Because I really can't start hiding the kitchen chairs every time I go out :-)

I'm sure this sudden interest in the closet is a sudden burst of end of year cleaning thoughts. But she can't be standing on a chair like this as her age. Her balance on a flat shopping mall floor isn't great. A chair is an Everest.

But the dementia makes her aggressive to any suggestion of help: even when I showed her after the bath how I'd helped her - look I took the things down for you. Now you can sort them out safely. She was still testy with me. No gratitude for the help.

I got her all smiley and chatty at lunch: wartime food, New York, etc. The old tales. Maybe just averted a flareup.

Maybe.

I'm going to get DS to warn her about chair climbing though, she does listen to him and if he says something is dangerous she may take his advice. May.

I have to get rid of all these bags. Shall have to find someone who does flea markets in the spring and offload them all.

And so. Another New Year holidays of Okaasan and Me approaches.

Dear Son will be away. It'll be me and Okaasan for the festivities. I bought some frozen crab legs and readymade traditional food. I'll take her shopping tomorrow and try to control the amount she buys.

:-)

Getting into a routine yet?

Well. We've all been doing this new life now for 1 month.
Are we getting into a routine? Is it getting easier...for all of us?

In some ways, yes.

The apartment basically is ok for okaasan. She covers it all with clothes and bags of stuff, but she seems happy in it. She can use the bath, with one of us in the living room in case she has problems, and she can prepare simple foods for herself with the microwave and the hot water pot. She can go out to the shops, and get home again safely. But we haven't got her into any kind of life here where she can meet other people - Hula dance classes for example. We have to try more on that front.

Daily routine is kind of getting set. Although now is an unusual time because it is winter holidays and he is home with a torn ligaments. And I am home on holiday. (The cat is SO happy to have us here by the way!).

Every morning I go into okaasan to say Goodmorning, give her a weather report and check that the heating is ok. About 11 am or a bit later she comes into us for a mid-day meal. We try to have a small breakfast, so we can eat our lunch with her. Otherwise the center of the day is full of food preparation.
Food is all New Year things at the moment - today I got praise all round for my ozoni - soup with vegetables and rice cakes. But the rest is easy: the pot of vegetables and chicken that okaasan made, and various seaweed/fish paste/bean things that she has bought. In duplicate.

After midday meal she goes home and we have some kind of afternoon.

About 6.30 - 7 p.m. we telephone her to get her ready for coming here for dinner.
We set the table. We get out the extra chair.
She comes and we eat. He chats away with lots of funny stories. I do oyomesan stuff.
I can now time the green tea making and know how to boil the water, how much tea to put in the strainer - how to pour it into the soup or rice bowl so it can be drunk and clean out the bowl.

Okaasan usually stays until about 8 or 8.30 p.m.. Then I walk back home with her and check the heating one more time.

Then I come home and we spend the rest of the evening together, drinking more alcohol and watching movies or TV.
(and yes, if you're wondering...we do have a love life too...the first week or so he was keener than me...now I have energy and interest again!)

But there are stresses. "My" time is so precious. In the psychology of this situation I know I am escaping a lot. Coming upstairs here to play computer games. Lots of evasive actions: the other night I found myself, rather bizarrely, repairing the hall curtains just before New Year's Eve dinner...looking back, I know it was because it was something I needed/wanted to do. Without THEM.

I guess the situation is made a bit stranger because HE is home and sitting on the sofa all day in front of TV. So I can't find my own time away from okaasan even in my own living room. I come upstairs to the computer room a lot. He did so much New Year cooking and I worry that he has been standing on his leg too much.

It all makes me think about how, if we move house, we can make it easier. The other day I was in a friend's big apartment as he packed up to move back to the US. Vaguely I was looking at the large apartment and wondering how it would be for us to live there. In fact we really need a garden and a parking space...but it was interesting to run the ideas through the brain.

The apartment had a big room off the hallway and near the bathroom - and then a separate door into the living/kitchen/bedroom area. I imagined us living there. But - then I knew - I would REALLY need more than just an internal door between me and okaasan!
I want to be able to walk around my home naked.... if I want. I want to stretch out drunk on the living room carpet. Dance with the cat in my pyjamas. I want to chase my man around in his underpants.

I DON'T want his mum in my living room unexpectedly!!!
So. Whatever we do. That would have to be a consideration. We need more space. But I need MY space.
Many families in Japan live behind the same front door, but in separate rooms with their own TVs. But I can't do that. I need to be able to close the door and know that my home in mine.

Anyway. Tonight I am escaping to dinner with a friend. Now I so understand the feelings of mothers and housewives: the desperate need to get OUT and be oneself. To return to regular, adult, singleperson life. I think maybe in the past I wasn't a very understanding friend to many people who were trying to find some balance between themselves and their family-life: wanting to go OUT, but also pulled by responsibilities at home.

Now I get it.