Some Days are Better than Others

Every morning I wake up not knowing what things or frankly who I am going to face that day.  I have been living full time with my grandmother for almost five months now.  If you ask her though my boys and I have only been here about a month...if asked she has always answered about a month.  I remember when we first moved in with her, she was very overwhelmed.  Again, you have to remember I didn't have a grasp of how her alzheimer's had progressed.  I also didn't have a great understanding of how to deal with it.  I guess I still don't.  I mean, I haven't read any books, although my aunt has given me one she found helpful.  I am not a person with a medical background.  I have never dealt with this before.  I am doing the best I can each day.  I listen to everyone's advice on "this is how you should handle that" or "this is what I would do if it were me" but the truth of the matter is, it's not you, you are not the one having to handle anything.  You can hang up the phone or just go home.  This is my home now.  This is my life.  This is my problem.

Over the last few months I have noticed there are specific things that grandma is uncomfortable with or simply doesn't understand.  She goes in cycles of being upset about all these things.  For example, it started the day we moved in...we need to get organized, once we do everything will settle down.  At first this seemed like a legitimate argument.  I mean a family of three moved in on this woman who had been living virtually alone for the past nine years.  And not only three people but two of them are small children and everyone knows children have toys...lots and lots of toys.  Basically I had a lot of stuff.  So, it made sense when she said we just need to get organized, because that is exactly what we needed to do.  What I didn't understand then, but do now, is that she hasn't known where her own belongings were in her own house for a long time now.  I mean, there are items she can't find that have been in the same place for the past twenty years.  I can find this stuff with my eyes closed.  She is lost in her own house...all the time.

My grandmother lived through World War II, the great depression, she has sat by and watched almost all of her friends and siblings die.  She is quite a woman.  It only makes sense that the woman doesn't want to waste anything and conserve everything.  Another cycle we have concerns the laundry.  She seems obsessed with the laundry.  While we are in this cycle, EVERY time I start a load of laundry she is right beside me, watching me and EVERY time she says, "now we need to get together when we do laundry and wash our clothes together.  That would save on doing so much.  Water costs money.  There is no reason to do laundry everyday."  Now I know to just agree with her.  The truth of the matter is that I do not do laundry everyday.  I do laundry once a week, but in her mind time is nothing.  It doesn't matter.  Time does not exist in her mind anymore. 

And yet another cycle we have is "who is in charge?"  There seems to be, what grandma has named, a "power struggle" in the home.  She feels she should be in control of me and my boys and herself and I disagree completely.  Now here is the truly tricky part.  I have been taught from day one to respect my elders and do as they say.  Growing up, my grandparents were often my babysitters.  I would go to their house after school and wait until my mother got off from work.  I moved in with my grandparents while I was in college to help grandma take care of my sick grandfather.  All this time she was my "boss."  She told me what to do and how to act and I would do it, for the most part.  There may have been the occassional sigh and eye roll.  But, when push came to shove, I knew what I needed to do and that was to mind my grandma.  Now the roles have changed and she doesn't know.  I have grown up and am now a mother myself and she doesn't understand.  The problem is, she has a mind of a child so my three year old's ideas seem great to her and all I do is "gripe."  To her I am no fun and very strict.  I don't take her advice on anything even though she has raised kids before.  All I do is disagree with her.  This is very frusterating because I have no choice but to disagree with her on some things.  I am trying very hard to do what I think is right while making her think I agree with everything she says.  I am still trying to give her the respect she deserves while being the "boss" of the house.  Basically, some days are better than others.