Saturday, November 22, 2014

Happy Morning :-)


I kept checking on Mommy this morning, and she wasn't awake and wasn't awake and wasn't awake, until finally a little after ten, she woke up groggily when I went into her room.  I said, "Good Morning!" and I told her what day it is, that's it's less than a week until Thanksgiving, and that it's crisp, cold, clear morning outside.  Then, I opened the curtains, and sat her up a little to start to get ready to eat her apple-strawberry-banana sauce.  She gets the first two or three bites with her crushed up vitamin in it, and then she gets the rest of it without any crushed vitamin and so much more delicious.

At around 11:30  or so, she was ready to eat breakfast.  I'm letting her set the pace of the days.  She seems much happier when I'm not announcing that it's time to eat or get up or anything.  (The only exception to this is time on commode [half hour max] and other clothes changing times.)

This morning I gave her a picture of Grandma O'Connor to look at.  It's one where Grandma is holding a dog, and when I wondered whose dog it might be, Mommy told me it was Grandma's dog.  Maybe it was?  I don't know.  :-)

In the picture above, you can see Grandma's picture is leaned up against the book.  Mom spent a lot of time this morning just staring happily at it.  I think that she feels close to Grandma when she is looking at the picture, and it made her happy.

On the tray in front of her is her oatmeal and her cranberry juice.  She's not up to feeding herself this morning, so I got to spoon feed her, and while I did I read Proverbs 22 and some of the Gospel of Mark.  Reading while she's eating makes it easier for me to remember to be patient.  It's best if I don't get the next bite on the spoon until she has actually swallowed the bite before.  Otherwise, she can tell I'm ready and it makes her nervous.  So, I read while she chews until I see out of the corner of my eye that she's swallowing and then I slowly, slowly, slowly get the next bite ready.  That seems to be making mealtime more enjoyable for her.

She's laughing in the picture.  The conversation that brought the laugh went like this:

Me:  "I love you so much, Mommy."  (I'm standing with the camera hoping to get a good picture for you all.)
Mommy:  "Me too."  (And then she laughed :-)  the laugh you see captured above.)

Another thing that has made her laugh three mornings in a row is this.  When I tell her it is almost Thanksgiving, I say that the day after Thanksgiving we're going to decorate for Christmas, and I can't wait.  Then I say, "It isn't even Thanksgiving yet, and Marjie has already got her house decorated for Christmas!"  Every time I've said this, Mommy laughs or smiles.

After she finished breakfast.  It was already noon, but she'd only been awake for two hours, and I asked her if she was ready to get up or if she wanted to rest in bed a little while longer.  She wanted to rest.  So, I'm letting her.  We changed the linens again real quick, and she got really depressed.  She hates that part of this disease, and I don't blame her.

So, she was lying there depressed, and I went and checked the mail, and there was a letter from Hannah.  I took it in to Mommy and her mood just lifted like magic.  She really still loves mail.

I snapped a pic with my cell phone to send to Hannah, and I'll copy it here.  It isn't as good quality as it would be with a camera, and it doesn't show her face very well, but she has a really peaceful, happy, smile on her face.  You can almost see it from the side.


Update (12:45):  I just went in to see if she was dozing or awake, and she was awake so I brought her some other things to look at.  She really loves the pic of Grandma O'Connor, and I managed to get a cell phone shot of her face while she looked at it.  I thought I'd share it real quick too.   (And it's Janet's dog in the picture - the back of it is a postcard and it's written there.)

4 comments:

  1. Well I was gonna say it said whose dog it was on the back of it, but you discovered that. LOL! She looks really happy and I am feeling guilty for not sending mail. The boys have been coloring stuff and making stuff for her and I really need to get that out to you. One thing Cody said the other day was "I don't like waving bye bye to Grandma!". I guess that is his way of saying he misses her. :( Chelle is brilliant though cause when they say they miss her she chimes in and says then let's make something to send to her. I think that is what Pete suggested to me weeks ago also. It seems strange to go to church without mom too so that is an adjustment for me. Hope you have a wonderful rest of the day with mom!

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  2. Forgot to say that it was neat you posted this post about mom liking the picture of Grandma O'Connor yesterday cause it was her birthday. I think she would have been 101 this year.

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  3. That's so wonderful! I'd forgotten that it was Grandma's birthday. I had to sneak the picture away later because Mommy was so sad - like she got with Daddy's picture. Now, I'm being careful with pictures, and I'm going to give them often, but for short periods of times. Do you think that will work? She's happy looking at pictures at first, but two times now, later, she becomes very, very sad. I tried to think what it would be like to have a pain in my heart, but not remember for sure what was causing it? Maybe that's what she experiences as she ponders on the pictures.

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  4. I think that you should just try it and see what happens. There is no perfect way and from my experience with mom (and I know yours also), what works one day may not the next. :) (hugs)

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