Katimay ,Tuesday, 9-29

Tuesday Katelyn and I went over to Mom's. Katimay had been looking forward to swimming there over the summer and it just didn't happen, so she was very excited to finally get into Great Grammie's pool!

Mom came down with us and enjoyed watching her have so much fun. It's a great pool and has a large area that is 3' deep. The deep end is just 5' - so it's great for kids. they have family swimming from 3 to 7,on M-F and 10- 2 on Saturdays, so keep it in mind when you are going for a visit.

I've noticed that as the day wears on Mom's hearing gets worse. The last time I had Katimay with me we were there for lunch and Mom was able to carry on a great conversation with her - Of course, I had to interpret a lot of her words as Katimay has some speech issues. This time Mom had trouble from the get go, but that didn't stop my Katimay!!! While clearing the table after supper Katimay was trying to get Mom to show her where the trash was, and was asking very nicely Where's the trash? - which sounded like ____________ da _________
Totally incomprehensible unless you live with Katimay!!

Then out of frustration she was asking Great Grammie where's the rubbish, again totally in her jargon, so Mom was clueless. She showed her the rumpled napkin to see if she could get an idea of what she was saying - no luck. So rather than just give up, Katimay went in to the tv room and threw it in the waste basket in there!!! LOL!! Mom got quite a laugh out of it after I explained what it was Katimay had been saying!!

Holly was in yesterday - She is the bayada aide. On Tuesday Mom had decided to let her do the laundry and strip her bed. Now that is an accomplishment as she had previously refused to even consider having her do it. I think she is realizing that by not doing it herself it will give her more energy to have for things she would rather be doing.

Peter, Ruth and I have had conversations about Mom's episodes of dizziness and have come up with a plan to let Mom make the decision ahead of time as to how she wants to handle them. I will be discussing it with her on our visit tomorrow.

Google Five Wishes, if you have any interest in end of life issues. Larraine used this for her folks, and I recently got some copies for John and Me. It is more comprehensive than just the standard living will, and gives you all the things you need to be thinking about in this regard.

Tomorrow Jean is meeting us at Mom's for lunch in their restaurant. This was Mom's idea. It is great that she is thinking about people she wants to be seeing. She is trying to work out a visit with Connie Corson also.

As Ruth won't be down this weekend I will be heading over on Saturday - I am driving a group of kids to Boston for a day trip and will spend the day with mom while waiting to pick them up at the end of the day.

I brought a step ladder over on Tuesday and used it to check out all her high cabinets. As we had found bugs in one of the lower ones, I wanted to be sure there weren't any overhead, which there weren't, Thank you God! We are moving things she does not use at all up into these cabinets and reorganizing the others. She has been doing some of the drawers on her own, and I can tell she has great self satisfaction that she is again able to do things around the house herself.

With Katimay with us we did not get to play any games, so I expect a marathon between Friday and Saturday, You know how feisty she can be!

If anyone other than Ruth and Sarah has anything at Mom's that you want, please let me know so that I can be aware of it as we go through this process.