Random Happenings

So as a major inspiration for this blog was to jot down the random happenings of living with someone with Alzheimer's, I think that occasionally, it will be worthwhile to just post some random happenings with my grandma.

1. The way she wakes me up. So, my grandmother is now sleeping in 2-3 hours spurts. Which is not fun. Fortunately, or not, depending on the day, I'm not working so I'm up a lot in the middle of night. This means, I constantly tell her, usually two times a night now for the past couple of weeks, to go back to bed since its the middle of night. However, on the occasions when I am peacefully asleep, she has chosen the following method to wake me up. Picture me peacefully sleeping on my stomach or back, all lights off at 4am in the morning. And then suddenly, someone grabs my foot on top of the covers and yells "BIBBY!" I am not a heavy sleepy. Just saying my name in a reasonable tone is usually enough to wake me. I'm pretty sure this scares about a month off my life EVERYTIME.

2. The oven. So, we finally hit another milestone. When my grandmother wakes up in the middle of the night she always thinks that's its morning and she always thinks that she has to get ready to go to the center. My grandmother has the same breakfast everyday. Some version of toast w/ jam and tea. To counter her more frequent tendencies to burn things to a startling amount, usually making the fire alarm to go off, we've done the following: 1. Bought one of those super basic toaster that automatically shuts itself off after the toast pops up and B. We bought a thermos that my mother fills up every morning with hot water, so she can simply pour the water when she gets up instead of turning on the stove.

The problem is she still turns on the stove because she forgets the thermos has hot water, or she just wants to do it herself. As she has on different occasions burned several pots, herself and left the gas on, we finally made the call to remove the knobs on the stove. As this was at 2:30 am when she decided she wanted a cup of tea (which i refused because this would have turned into a 1.5 hour process- 5 minutes for the team to hot up, 15 minutes for the tea to be cool enough to drink, 25 minutes to drink the tea, and another 45 minutes for her to "sit up" after drinking the cup of tea) she got angry and decided to sulk. Once again watching Disney cartoons on the loveseat since we had a 12 year old sleeping on our couch again.

3. We may have another milestone coming up. While Grandma isn't a wanderer and is generally scared to leave the house on her own, she does have the unfortunate habit of unlocking and opening the door to outside in the middle of the night and taking a peek outside. She is supposedly checking to see if the door is locked (although as I mentioned, she first unlocks the door). I bought these motion sensor door alarms that are quite loud sometime last year. My mom wants me to start activating them. I'm hesitant but it may be time. I don't know. Its not fun.

4. But here's my favorite and probably the funniest. I'm in a wedding in May and the bridal shower is coming up this weekend. For the bridal shower, I bought a few things including a very pretty hatbox to hold everything, a lovely picture frame and two nighties. One is sorta seafoam blue and the other is a leopard print body shapper/bustier kinda thing. The bride is tiny. Like maybe 110 pounds and a skim over five feet.  So of course the two nighties are small/extra small. No one in my family is a small by any stretch of the imagination. I, of course, come out of my room and see my grandmother going through the hatbox with her dinner also in her lap. I immediately go to take the items from her (chinese food and silk do NOT go together) which is when she INSISTS that the items are hers. In fact, she is holding the leopard print (x-tra small) body shaper and tells me straight-faced and indignant that this is the bathing suit she bought for herself not too long ago.  I was literally speechless. My grandmother who has not been in a body of water OR left the house without a sweater on (even in 90 degree weather) in more than 15 years has convinced herself that I am trying to STEAL HER LEOPARD PRINT BATHING SUIT (which is again, not a bathing suit). I still took the items and had to hide them from her because she will pack them away when I'm not looking (she's taken a few bags and some victoria secret underwear from me this way). I'm always curious to see if this will come back to haunt me.