Sleepover!

Mother has become a big fan of sleepovers. Normally, she has her sleepovers with Melanie in Melanie's room or i'll go lay in bed with her until she falls asleep but lately she has been very demanding and she keeps trying to get me to have sleepovers. I do have a sleepover here and there but not every night. The other night she went to go to bed and asked if I was coming up and when I said no she moaned sadly and whined at me. I finally gave in and told her I had to go downstairs to get my glasses and as I was leaving she asked where I was going and if I was coming back. Once I confirmed this, again, she said, "ok, good". How can you deny little old Fannie a sleepover?

Tender Moments

 It's weird because knowing your Mom as a child is much different than knowing your Mother when you are an adult. As an adult you share different things and experiences with your Mother. I can't thank my Mother enough for being such a great Mother but I feel like i've known two Moms because I have. The Mother before the disease and the Mother that the disease created. It's my Mom no matter what and I love her but I do think about how I wish I had those Mother-daughter moments. The roles have truly been reversed. I am now the adult and she is the "child". It would have been nice to have had the adult-adult relationship. I'm not angry, at times a little sad, but more aware of it than anything. I'm not going to be able to have those moments with my Mom like her being at my wedding or playing with my kids but that's ok because my moments with my Mom are when she randomly says she missed me or when she puts the blanket on me when we are laying in bed together at night. Things do change and last year my moments were a little different and as this disease progresses it may seem that the moments do too, but they don't. This disease can't take this. I've had some many great memories with my Mother and even the bad times are not actually bad times but memories of the time I was able to have with her.

Bed hopper

Oh Mother. She continues being are cute silly cupcake. This morning I got up early to do some school work and went upstairs at 6am and saw Mother sleeping in her bed with little Fiona. After doing some work I returned at 7am to find Mother climbing into "her" bed in Melanie's room. She just waved hi and asked me what I was doing and tucked herself into her second bed. When I was about to leave around 8am I went to run up the steps and I was suddenly startled because there Mother was standing at the top of the steps creepily watching my every move. She asked me the normal line of questions and then I tucked her back into her bed in Melanie's room and went on my way. Those wandering moments are interesting to say the least. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night to your Mother standing in front of you starring at you in the dimly lit room...(don't worry folks she's not going to run away on us or anything. We have all the proper safety measures and what not going on).

You can never win!

Sometimes, no matter what you do you can never win and this can also be applied to Mother.When we go somewhere or she goes somewhere if we tell her about it days before she will talk about it nonstop for days and gets anxious about it so sometimes we just tell her the day of because its easier that way. This may be easier in the long run but Mother gets upset about it sometimes. After work last night I went to Josh and Karen's place to pick up Mother and bring her home. When she got into the car Josh told me she was a bit angry and I could see it in her face. She tried to tell me the story but all I knew was about Melanie and Kendra and then I realized it was because no one "told her" she was going to Josh and Karen's. She told me she didn't have fun and that she was mad. When we got home Kendra tried to talk to her and she said, "I'm not talking to you". Kendra kept trying to suck up to her by giving her some ice cream but that didn't work!  Then she told Mom to hold the kitten, Fiona, and grumpy pants Mother said she didn't like her so Kendra put her in her arms and she walked around with her until she just stood there holding her...

She did the same thing this morning too. She is still kind of grumpy with Melanie and Kendra too. Wohoo, I'm her favorite for now! 

Stay in the yard!

The weather is hot and beautiful now, well sometimes, so we try and get Mother out and about as much as possible not only because it is good for her health but so we can show her that the "people" are not out and that everything is ok. We were out in the yard doing different chores and landscaping so Mother was out helping us. She was in charge of picking up the branches and putting them into a pile and also entertaining Max when he got bored and started barking. She did alright except for sometimes she would get focused on breaking the branches down with her arms and her thigh but they were too big for her and she just strained to break them. We pointed her back over to the pile where she then would place them and reminded her she didnt have to break them down. She loves helping. She came over and asked if I needed help in the garden, too. She did wonder off toward the end of the yard and started walking away so we had to gently remind her to stay close to us. She kept looking in the barn and walking away from the branch pile with the branches. After about an hour of doing about 10 minutes of work Mother was exhausted. We had to put her inside, drinking water, and cooling off. Like a good little watchful eye she is she sat in the kitchen and starred out the window at us while we finished up the yard work.

As I was scanning this pictures in Mother was harrassing me and said, "so, what are we doing?" then I said we were going to go downstairs in a little bit and she left and came back and the next time she was not pleased. I'm sitting her typing and all of the sudden she loudly says "yoooooooooooooooo, what are we doing?" haha. These pictures are from before her illness. The first one is from around 2004 when she was still working as an LPN. The 2nd one is from 1999 when Josh graduated high school. The 3rd one is from around 2000 (i'm not sure exactly ill have to research it a bit).

She came back in after we put her in cooler clothes and models them and says, "I was gonna have a cigarette" while smirking because she knows in order for her to have a cigarette I have to go down give it to her, let it, monitor her, and help her put it out, she does some of them some of the time.See there is something in the noggin' still going on.

Where is she?

06/08/11 2:49am

I got done work around 11:30pm and when I got home Mother was already asleep but I did get to see her several times. Around 11:45 Mother came down from her room wondering what we were doing, where we were going, and what she had to do so I brought her back upstairs and tucked her in. Finally, some time to relax after work, right? 12:30 Mother comes down asking the same questions but we realized that she was touching her belly so it meant her stomach was upset. After fixing the situation we (Melanie and I) sent her back off to bed and we went to bed too.

I was in a pretty deep sleep and for some reason I heard the door to the basement open and I hear Mother say "Meredith" and I literally hop up and sprint up to her. I seriously couldnt do anything but laugh when I saw her because she was at the top of the steps sans pants holding the kitten. I asked her what she wanted and she kept asking, "Where is she?" "Is she dead?" and I was really confused because who would be dead? We went upstairs together and she pointed and asked where's "Meredith, I can't find her?" (she always calls Melanie by my name). I showed her that Melanie was right in the room next to her and that she was sleeping and not dead, tucked her in and went back to bed. When I got up at 6:45am for work she popped her head up out of from her covers and I just smirked at her and said, "Missy, you're in trouble after your shananigans last night" and she just laughed and asked where I was going. ha ha.

Her best friends

Mother loves babies which includes actual babies, children of many ages, and animals. It takes a special talent to figure out which she is talking about. Mother wanted a kitten and since it was our birthdays we got a kitten for our birthday and for Mother too. She loves the kitten but last night after the kitten and her rowdy ways she kept says "that asshole" about the kitten. Today, I was outside enjoying the weather while Mom was with her Max and the baby. When I came inside I found this:

Here's Mother with her other baby Mask. This is the cat that she likes to meow at when she goes to bed.

And here she is with her one and only; they were napping together which is a daily activity that occurs multiple times a day.

A helping hand

Mother has always gone through her phases like when she was collecting change or sweeping the floor constantly. She isn't interested in doing much besides eating and looking out for the "people" so we like to get her involved as much as possible which involves little chores around the house. Sometimes they can be sort of counter productive but she enjoys it. She also gets tuckered out so quickly too or maybe she is faking it...which is totally feasible because before she used to limp (very rarely) and at first we were concerned but we realized she was just faking it for attention much like our beloved Sassy used to do. Possibly she mourning her death by pretending to have her fake limp.

This was a particularly funny incident because this time she initiated wanting to sweep. She started sweeping then all of the sudden she flung the pile at us and told us we don't do anything. She was so grumpy and kept huffing and puffing while she was sweeping. 

This day she was vacuuming her own room and started to lean on the dresser because the vacuum was apparently too heavy. For the next three days she would act like she couldn't reach for things and get up because her arm hurt. She was just sore. 

This is a video of her vacuuming my room today. She was on this spot for over 30 seconds.

In this video you can hear Mother say "Shut up, bitch"