Grandma Makes Dinner

So I had planned on making the classic southern meal of cornbread, a pot of beans and greens.  Grandma got very excited about this idea. She always tells me that this is the only meal she ate growing up. Even though I make this meal every couple of weeks, she doesn't remember.  She keeps saying that we haven't had a proper meal since I moved in.  I finally reminded her that I had been here for almost nine months and we have had lots of meals.  She was totally shocked that I had been here so long.  She thought we'd just moved in and is also wanting us to get organized again.  The cycles continue. 

I put the beans on to cook and she takes them over while I sneaked off to put my boys down for their naps.  I come back and the beans are cooking away and she said she took care of them.  I assume they are good since she has made this dinner hundreds of times over the years.  A couple of hours go by and she goes to stir them and asks me if I have seasoned them and when was the last time I stirred them.  She begins to get onto me for not paying close enough attention.

Later I go to the store and pick up some fresh spinach and turnip greens.  I got home and asked if she could get started on them.  She was telling me earlier in the day exactly how I should go about cooking them.  I thought she had it covered.  I stay outside and play with the boys a little and by the time I make it in she had the spinach in a pot of boiling water, the turnip greens in two piles on the bar...one pile was blanched and the other was completely raw, and had cut the leaves off the radishes I'd picked from the garden and was washing them in the sink.  I tried to ask her what she was doing and what her plan was and she just got more and more flustered.  She said the radishes were spinach, and I said no they were radishes.  Then she said the radishes were turnips and I said no they were radishes.  I asked what she was doing with the turnip greens and she said they were all bad and needed to be thrown out.  Finally she asked what I thought her plan was and I had NO idea.  The kitchen was in a mess.  She then gets mad and yells at me that this is why she is not supposed to be in charge of anything.  She storms out of the kitchen and leaves me to figure out her mess.  I immediately throw out the radish greens because I don't even think you are supposed to eat them.  I make due with everything else the best I can.  In the meantime, my youngest son comes into the kitchen and cries at my feet because he is hungry.  Grandma comes in immediately, because she can NOT stand to hear him cry, and tells me to go take care of him while she finishes up dinner.  Are you SERIOUS?!? 

It is getting to the point that any project she starts ends up being a big mess for me to clean up.  Dinner, laundry, whatever.  Things can be challenging around here sometimes.

Strange Findings

So, I thought I would just share some of the small, strange things I find and deal with on a daily basis.  I just need to get some off my chest.  These things grandma does are not a big deal, just strange.  For example, my grandmother has become obsessed with sweets.  The fridge is filled with food and there are all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables at her fingertips, but she will pick the cookies or brownies every time.  This is something I have heard other older people doing, but I have never experienced it first-hand.  Friday I made a big pan of brownies, the family size.  I had one brownie and the boys had a brownie and my grandmother ate the rest of the pan in just two days.  I don't know how she did it, but she did.  So, by Sunday the brownies were gone and on Monday my aunt brings by a loaf of banana bread she just made.  Again, I had a piece and the boys had a piece of the bread.  Then, a few hours later the loaf is half gone.  I even catch her having a piece of banana nut bread with her meatloaf for dinner.  Gross!  Later that night I decide I would like a little something sweet and I go look for the banana bread and I can't find it anywhere.  I check the cabinets, the fridge and then the freezer.  There it is...why?  It is also wrapped heavily with saran wrap.  I look over and notice she has unwrapped the taco shells I had wrapped the night before and wrapped the bread in that and left the taco shells sitting on the counter.  That is just a weird thing to do. 

Every night I wash the dishes and leave them out to dry.  And every morning she tells me she was going to put them away but didn't know where they went.  She always puts them away anyway in random places.  So, for the rest of the day I will open a cabinet and stop to rearrange its contents.  The boys' spoons, for example, are things she has no idea what to do with.  She tells me, "now I don't know where you want these, so I've just been putting them here."  Unfortunately, the "here" she refers to is different every time she says it.  I find these things everywhere, all over the kitchen, in every drawer and cabinet. 

Yesterday I was going to a friend's house but had to get the recycle to the curb before I left.  I was running back and forth, in and out, carrying out our recycleables.  I run to the curb and drop off some newspaper and by the time I make it back to the porch she had locked the screen and locked me out.  I knock and she is no where to be found.  Apparently she was in the back of the house and couldn't hear me knocking...for five minutes.  Needless to say, I was late to meet my friend. 

So, there are a few examples of my strange findings. 

Rough Week

Yesterday I took my grandmother's pills away from her.  I have been in charge of administering them all along but have always left the bottles in the medicine cabinet.  But, yesterday I made the decision I had been putting off and I have moved the medicine into my room and hid it away from her.  This is something that I have been dreading but it finally had to be done.  I know she is not getting any better.  So, last night I gave her her pills while we ate dinner.  After dinner she asked me twice is she'd taken them and I reminded her that she had and exactly when and how she ate them.  I have to step out of the house and run an errand and it takes me half an hour.  Now remember, I told her right before I left she had already taken her pills, but when I get back I open the cabinet to prepare her morning pills and find the pill bottles have all been rearranged and some are out and I don't know if she took more or not.  So, for her safety, I am hiding her pills from her.  I am dreading the conversation we are bound to have eventually about where they are and why.  But, I guess this is just part of it. 

She has also been really bossy over the last couple of weeks.  She tries to be in charge of everything, me and the boys included.  This can be trying on my nerves.  She has been saying, "okay, I have to leave the room now, you are in charge of the boys."  She reminds me of how fast I am driving and how I should remember the "precious cargo" I have in my backseat.  I go the speed limit, but apparently 70 mph is too fast, even on the interstate.  When I have trouble getting one of the boys to eat all his dinner she begins to tell me what I have done wrong all day to make this happen.  Apparently in her day she did not give her children snacks throughout the day.  I do.  Also, she never drank anything with her meal, she always waited until she was completely done eating before she would drink.  I let my children drink and this is wrong.  And I am reminded numerous times a day because she forgets from minute to minute what she is saying. 

The kicker is, to a stranger or someone that doesn't talk to her everyday or live with her, she sounds completely fine.  You ask her what she did today and she goes through a list of laundry, dishes, ironing, etc.  These things sound completely believable and completely fine.  Unfortunately, nothing is true.  She doesn't do any of these things anymore.  I do the laundry and the dishes because she can't figure out which bottle of detergent to use, and she can't remember where the dishes go to put them away.  She also can't do the ironing because she can't rember where the ironing board is or the iron.  Old relatives or friends call that haven't talked to her in months or even years and she goes on and on and about ninety percent of it is false. 

I do feel sorry for her.  I think she must feel really alone because she doesn't remember when people come by or call.  She thinks no one cares or remembers her.  She also does not realize that she has alzheimer's.  This is challenging for both of us. 

And We're Back...

Okay, so it has been a VERY long time since my last post and now I am back.  I have been out of town for the last month and grandma has been here staying with my mom and aunt.  I called to chat while out of town and she totally tattled on them.  Things they wouldn't let her do and how unfair they were being.  It was so cute and funny.  I just let her vent. 

When I got back she was tickled to see the boys and myself.  And all evening she has been telling me all her stories over again.  Like the little brown bowl that she has in the kitchen.  She used to have a set of two or three of these mixing bowls.  But, over the years they have gotten broken or misplaced and now she is down to one.  She truly believes that this one bowl is all she has ever had and at one time, a long time ago, she dropped that bowl and it cracked.  She didn't want to throw it away so she just put it in the back of the cabinet.  Since I moved in, I have been using this bowl.  Every time I get it out she tells me the story of how she cracked it a long ago and over the years the bowl has grown back together. 

Poor grandma is constantly getting lost in the kitchen.  She told me tonight that she just can't find anything in the kitchen cabinets after I moved in.  I didn't move anything and I reminded her of this, but apparently I have been piling things in front of hers and she can't find her things anymore.  I didn't have the heart to tell her that is wasn't just since I moved in, that she couldn't find things before. 

Apparently this week the garbage man accidently dropped her trash can into the truck and ripped it to shreds.  My mom discovered this and she and grandma drove up and down the road and checked around the house to see if someone had perhaps carried it off.  This all happened this morning and when I got home she told me that we had been robbed.  It happened last night and she wasn't here, thank goodness.  They stole everything that was outside...the trash can, the recycle bin, and the mail box.  She was very distraught about where she was going to put her papers.  She is so cute!  I reassured her that the recycle bin was still out there and I could take her papers out and told her about the trash truck eating the can and they would be replacing it.  A few hours later she asked me how I was going to get the mail since the mailbox was gone.  Poor thing didn't remember. 

She has started referring to the time before when she could remember things.  And she is starting to refer to this more and more.  Like she is more aware that she is losing her memory?  Too soon to tell I guess...

Phone Calls

I have a phone and my grandmother has a phone.  But, my phone rings more than hers and this makes her mad.  Apparently it is a competition to see who can get more phone calls during the day.  Not only am I younger and my friends are still alive so they can call me, I am also busy doing things and often need to touch base with people about these things.  I babysit and sometimes the child's mother will call.  Or my sister confirming plans we have.  Or the boys' doctor confirming an appointment.  Or just whoever.  It doesn't matter who, it only matters that they are not calling to talk to grandma.  My phone is an internet phone and if I am on it too much during the day my grandmother will unplug the router.  She also does this if I am on the computer too much.  I have been looking around the house for my cell phone and when I ask her if she has seen it, she pulls it from her shirt pocket.  I have been on that too much and she has hidden it from me.  So, if the internet has been disconnected and the cell phone has been hidden, don't even think about calling her house phone and asking for me.  This sends her into a rage and she will sigh and fret so loudly on the phone in a labored effort to get it to me.  Then she will complain the whole time I am talking as well as some time after I hang up. 

Don't call and leave a message with her either.  She will either forget you called completely, like she did my dad the other day, or get the message totally distorted.  I was going to feed the cat of a friend of mine while she was gone out of town.  I was running late to meet her so she called and told my grandma that she was still waiting and would wait until I showed up.  When I got home grandma said that my friend had called and said not to worry about the cat, she was already on the road and had found someone else to feed him.  I, knowing my grandmother's ability to take messages, called my friend back to find her waiting at her house for me. 

The other day my sister was over and doing some work on my computer and as she was finishing up she goes to push the send button on an email she had spent quite a while completing and...nothing happens.  The computer is offline.  That's right.  She had been on there too long according to grandma so the router was unplugged. 

I have to admit, at first this was a little irritating.  Like right now she just walked in here and rolled her eyes at me after seeing me on the computer.  And I know next she will start saying how even though I am here she feels all alone because I never talk to her.  I spend all my time on the computer or phone.  I don't get upset by this anymore.  My family and friends have figured out how and when to call me and I know that if I sat and stared at her all day long she wouldn't remember it ten minutes later. 

There is no pleasing this woman who used to be pleased as punch that I called and talked to her for five minutes.  Now I live in the same house with her and I can't do anything right.  She finds a negative spin on everything and is so unhappy it is sad to watch.  But here I am, watching and trying my best to take care of her daily needs as I now know and have accepted I can not take care of her emotional needs.

It's Been a Rough Week

My grandmother was telling me about the old days and she was remembering when her children were small like mine.  She was reminising and happily telling me of what they had and didn't have and how many new things we have now.  She said they didn't have much but they sure were happy.  And with that thought, she turned and left the room and suddenly broke into song...  I stopped and looked around and watched her walk down the hallway singing her little heart out.  I had to laugh to myself and suddenly felt I was living in a musical or something.  Like grandma gave her last thought and then the band started up and off she went, singing away.  It was hysterical!  The boys loved it too.  They love the old songs she comes up with and she has been teaching them some of them.  'Someone's in the Kitchen with Dina' is my oldest son's favorite! 

This past week I have been babysitting my nephew since he has been on summer break from school.  There has been some extra noise in the house and some added stress on grandma because he is one more kid for her to tell how to play.  And then Miss Kitty died.  She was the stray cat grandma and I rescued more than a decade ago.  We woke up the other morning and she lay there in the front yard and wasn't breathing.  This has been very stressful for grandma.  She can't get the details straight on when the cat died and she tells a random story to people that is completely NOT true.  And then, Friday night, after this stressful week, grandma asks me how many kids do I have?  The four of us, grandma, the boys and myself, were all seated around the table eating our dinner and she asks me how many kids are mine?  I looked up and she was completely serious.  It was sad.  I told her these two are mine and that is all I have.  She said she thought that was true but was also thinking I had a third...my nephew.  I told her no, he actually belongs to my sister.  I comforted her with the fact that I had been babysitting him a lot this week and she probably just got confused because he had been here so much. 

She is getting worse. 

I was watching her during dinner one night this week and she has started looking really old.  She is looking more feeble.  She stumbles more when she walks, her memory is getting worse.  She loses things immediately now.  I ran an errand and was gone for ten minutes and she was completely paniced when I got home.  She had forgotten where I had gone and was thinking I had been gone all night and she hadn't taken her medication.  The pills were out on the bar and she had already taken them.  I had been home all evening and told her I was running to my parents' house but she had gotten completely confused in the few minutes I was gone. 

She is getting worse...

A Little Funny

My grandmother and I have a garden this year.  It is my first garden so I am really excited but also a little unsure of myself.  I am relying on my family to help me figure this out.  The other day I was working in the garden and when I came in and grandma is all worked up because we need a double shovel plow or else the garden will not do well.  She stayed on this topic for a couple of days so I mentioned it to my mom, what is a double plow shovel and where would I find one?  She laughed and told me I would first need to get a donkey to pull it!  Apparently that is the plow grandma would use when she was a girl and that is what she was remembering that week!  We are still laughing about it.

My grandmother has a cat, Ms. Kitty.  It was a stray we found years ago.  Grandma feeds her twice a day...morning and evening.  But, lately she can't keep it straight whether or not she fed her.  I will walk by the patio door and see Ms. Kitty's face pressed up against the glass.  I always ask grandma if she fed her and she always says yes.  I secretly go out and feed her "more" and she just devours it!  Because grandma is getting all the other times she fed Ms. Kitty confused.  Another thing she does is feeds her every couple of hours and gripes that she doesn't eat..."the neighbors must be feeding her."  I giggle to myself.  The reality is that no cat could eat that much!  So, grandma will go and pick up Ms. Kitty's food "so the other animals don't eat it," forget she did, and next thing you know, Ms. Kitty is starving again and can't find her food bowl.  Poor cat! 

Last night grandma and I were watching Pawn Stars and a commercial came on advertising a restaraunt.  The commercial had a couple in it having a very romantic dinner and she immediately goes to turn the  television off in a huff because of the filth they put on there.  She does not want to watch "that sex stuff."  Before she can locate the remote the people start eating their dinner and she calms down.  Then, this morning I wake up and find her watching a Jerry Springer-like show about a father molesting his young daughter.  They are talking about all the horrible things he did to her and how much porn he watched and this she is watching intently.  What?!?  Then, after the show is over and the lie-detector test results come back to confirm this man is a monster, she looks at me and says "there is no difference in a father changing his daugher's clothes than a mother changing her son's clothes."  I am speechless to find she got NOTHING out of that program.  She thought the mom was just mad that the father would dress the daughter.   The night before she wouldn't watch a commercial with a man and woman kissing and this morning she is tuned into this show where they are bleeping out words and throwing things at each other! 

Sometimes it helps to just take a step back and laugh about some things...