Mom’s update Saturday, October 29, 2011
Anthony and Con started the day with mom. She was surprised to see them. They fixed her up for the day. They put her hearing aids in and sat her up. She had scrambled eggs with oatmeal. They watched TV together.
I came next to see mom. Mom was watching the food network. We watched the recipes and commented on how much butter Paula Dean was using! Aunt Lucy called and told mom that it was snowing in New Jersey! Dad came with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and mom lit up! He put them in a vase by her window. Dad and I took mom downstairs to the computer room. We went on Facebook and looked at pictures. We looked at her niece, Maureen, and left her a message. We went back to the room just in time for lunch. Mom had a strange lunch! She had spinach with garlic and yellow rice, sounds good so far, right? WAIT! It came with cottage cheese and peaches! I took the cottage cheese off the plate and had her eat the spinach and rice first. I gave the cottage cheese and peaches after and she ended up liking her lunch. I cleaned up lunch and we played “Headbands.” We had fun! I wrote her clues on the wipe off board because she has a difficult time remembering what she asked and what the answers were.
Jo Ann, Terry and I (Kathy) came next to join Dad and Claudia. We all sat and laughed and talked all afternoon!!! We told silly, funny stories and jokes! I cut mom’s hair and then I cut her nails and polished them too. At one point, Mom said, “I spend all night going over the pictures and the names. I look at all of them and say, ‘Hmmm… how many men? How many women are there? How many children? How many names start with A…”
Mom called Angelo and Madeline and they talked and laughed. We talked a lot and joked with mom’s roommate; she is a cutie at times. Mom’s roommate told us the story of her life---how she met her husband in WWII. The roommate told us about what people did for Halloween in the 1930s! She said they dressed up and went to a party in someone’s house and dunked for apples. She and mom both lived in Brooklyn too! She joked a lot with us after a while too! Mom’s roommate said that she, too, (the roommate) gets fidgety like mom does. The roommate noticed mom is fidgety and asked about it. Dad said that Carmine thinks, as we do, that the fidgetiness could be due to mom’s wanting to get up and do things…more like restlessness. Mom was sitting up and back, rocking forward and back, and also fidgeting her head and shoulder too on the right side. She frequently moves her hands and arms at the elbows too—up and down.
We tried to get mom to stand today. Dad stood in the front of mom and I stood in the back. We counted to 3 and told mom to stand. She wouldn’t hold herself up at all. She leaned back on me the whole time. She kept trying to reach dad so she could give him a kiss! She reached him with a little assistance from all of us.
Mom showed us a letter and card that her cousin, Joan, sent to her. Mom was so excited! Mom wrote in her journal next. She wrote:
“Today Con and Anthony woke me up. Then Claudia came next. Dad, Claudia, Terry, Kathy and JoAnne came in the afternoon. We tried to get me to stand and it was hard.”
It was hard for mom to write well today. The letters were not formed as well as usual and she couldn’t stay on the lines…but she does not have her usual eyeglasses because the lens that got lost has never been found. She is wearing an old pair of glasses that I brought from her house yesterday. Though she said she can see OK, she doesn’t see as well with them.
Mom called Lenny and then Jo Ann and I left for dinner. Dad and Terry stayed with mom and put her to bed.
“God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this
will laugh with me…” Genesis 21:6
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