Christmas 2010

We had a really good Christmas. Mom was able to come out to our family day on boxing day and enjoyed herself till about 4pm when she headed out the door of the party room and was headed home no matter what so we drove her home. Last year she wanted to stay for the whole time but I'm glad she was happy for at least a few hours.

My reward for helping her make the white snowflakes to give out was that about the fourth time I went in to work on them with her she said: "Oh there's our stars!" when I pulled them out. I never expected her to remember them at all. Of course when I gave them to her to give them out she didn't remember them, but I'm grateful for that one time that she did.

About a week before Christmas I attended a church service with Mom at her nursing home. It was headed by the three pastors of the three churches in the small town she lives in. That's her in the top picture enjoying reading the Christmas carols. She especially enjoyed Joy To The World and kept reading it even after the minister began his talk. Right in the middle she called out loudly, "Repeat the sounding joy! Repeat the sounding joy!"

Behavior like that would have been devastating to her before Alzheimers but is pretty much par for the course at a nursing home. The minister was not bothered in the slightest. Later in her room she told me that there were children down the hall practicing carols and Dana (one of her now grown up grand children) called out loudly right in the middle of a minister's talk! I'm glad she assigned the gaff to a child in her mind and didn't remember doing it herself.

There's a lot of flu and cold going around and we hope Mom doesn't get sick but I think she would gladly take the risk no matter what to be around her family and we had a pretty great Christmas!

Here's the movie:

http://www.vimeo.com/18204425

Sew Sew

Mom is doing well. Last year this time she was in the hospital. I remember because that's where she was when we did our annual craft to give out at the family Christmas. This year we can do it in the comfort of her home. I will never stop being grateful that she considers her nursing home as home most of the time. She has her bad days where she feels she needs to leave but for the most part she is content - such a gift! When I talk to friends who's parents suffer from strong paranoia and delusions that the people in the next room are coming to chop their heads off or that there is an on going earthquake happening they feel so helpless to comfort their parents.

Mom and I shared supper then we got to work on this year's Christmas craft. I was amazed again by how fleeting her short term memory is when she sewed. I had thought that a simple basting stitch around the edge of the snowflake would be easiest for her to do but she was stuck on the blanket stitch and if I had wanted it to look perfect I would have had to tell her with every single stitch what to do. That certainly wasn't something that I was going to do and sewing was actually pretty tough for her manually and so the middle snowflake in the picture above became the most special because it's the only one she'll actually sew. I'm selfish enough that it will become mine.

This is a little movie I put together of last night's visit:

http://www.vimeo.com/17787741

Thanks for your faithful readership Viki, how are you and your family doing?