"Mom, watch me!"

I know I keep saying that I must enter her world to have true understanding and compassion. Well, I threw that theory out the window and today I took her into mine.  When I went to Sunrise today she was still asleep.  She didn't want to get up.  I hung around the room, put things away...kept talking to her and she started to smile.  I had brought fresh orange juice and slowly she started to get up, then sit up, and then we drank it.  I remembered how when she lived in Florida we used to go to the best Orange juice stand in the world, you could drink cold free orange juice out of these paper cone cups. mmmmm.....I told her about that.  Then everyone helped get her ready....

And there she was all ready to go, somewhere?  Okay!  I had to go get Gidgey from school, so I took her with me, I had enough time and a wheelchair.  It's no easy feat getting her in and out of that thing, or the car for that matter, but I was up for the challenge.  It was a beautiful day here, the Jacaranda trees are incredible.  So...I took her into my world.  I wheeled her to Sunnyside!  Where I have painted murals, and have made a place for myself in "California".  She's always, always asking me where I live.
So today I showed her.

I showed her what I've done, who I am, my girls, my friends, my world, what I've grown up to be, and where I live.

Holding My Mother

What she sees.

This is her view.  The girls, the dog, the bed, which we moved onto the floor because it was too high.  Every time she sees it, it's new.  Can you imagine?  Anyway, so much for the headboard I searched all over for... that doesn't matter, now she can get into bed a little easier.  The girls and Bee and me all went over for a "movie night in Pajamas with popcorn."

Alzheimer's Reading Room: Keeping The Love Alive: The Color of Love

Alzheimer's Reading Room: Keeping The Love Alive: The Color of Love

Old VCR tapes?

I picked up some videos at the Studio City Library Sale.  It's the last Saturday of the month and helps support the library, better yet...great finds for 50 cents!  I don't really want to share the link, but I will because I love whoever is reading this.

Anyway, they love old musicals and old tv shows up at Sunrise.  All in the Family makes them laugh.  So, if anyone is finally ditching all their VCR's stuff, they still have a video machine up there.  Here is a link to recycling those old ones.

I stopped there by myself really quickly on my way to Sunnyside where I am painting another mural.  I had on my overalls, and my mom kept saying how pretty I was.  She was sitting at her table where she always sits by herself...well not really.  She is always talking to someone that is not there.  I kissed her and left, and she went back to talking to whoever, and was looking at the movies.

"Everyone Seems To Be Going Somewhere But Me."

"Everyone seems to be going somewhere except me."  That's what one of the new residents said to me as I was leaving Sunrise today.  Usually I have something nice to say....but I was stumped on this one.  I was like "ummmmmmm, okay, Goodbye" and I blew my mom a kiss from across the room, and shut the door into the safety of the cooridor between the door and the elevator.

It's 5am now...this is my time.  When I can draw, and not go on the computer.   But, I've been wanting to post since my last post.  I felt guilty leaving that video up there, and my frustrations.  I went back to Peggy's the next day with the kids and Beverly.  It was a hubbub of activity up there.  New kitchen cabinets were being installed and everything was moved around, so if you can imagine....Anyway, it was easy, and she was there and happy to see us. And I was happy to see her too.  It really is so much better if I enter her world, instead of trying to make her be in mine.  I think that is really the most important lesson I've learned lately.

Peggy and Beverly.

She had a cough...so the next night I brought over some Buckwheat Honey and night time cold medicine.  Like she used to come in at night and give me when I was a little girl.  She had been in bed all day.  I tried to get her up a little, it's so hard to move her around?  She's like a giant weeble wobble, and I have to laugh, because she laughs too.  I'd sit her up to try and give her a spoon of honey, and she'd just roll back down again.  Oh my.  I had a little quiet time with her and I had a chance to cut her toenails....yikes.  But, she didn't mind, this time.  

I got a call, she fell again.  But she's okay...just the fact that she is starting to fall more now is telling.  She's losing her balance.  We went and saw her, and she was in her wheelchair in her spot at the table.  The girls played with the bird "Grady".  My mom used to be deathly afraid of birds, most of the women in my family are??  She's not anymore.  She sits close and watches the girls hold "Grady".  I always remind them before we get there, that we are visiting Nana too!  They are good, Gidgey told Nana she liked her pretty shoes.  They really do, they like her, they are good to her, they seem to understand her and accept her for who she is and not who she was, unlike me.

One last note, thank you to everyone who leaves messages, or tells me I'm doing a good job, or just even asks about my Mom.  It really does makes me feel good and okay to share all this, even the not so nice stuff.