Volume + Vexation = Retention

Betty is currently obsessed with finding the rest of her John Sanford novels in the basement. We still have several dozen boxes of her books down there, but we're finishing the basement, so they have to stay in boxes for the moment. For the 10th time in a few days, she told me she was going to go down there to look for them, and for the 10th time, I explained why she absolutely couldn't. The steps are sleep, uncarpeted, and I have a recurring vision of finding her at the bottom of the steps, bleeding...

So once again, I found myself raising my voice a notch or two and telling her that if I ever found her on those steps, I'd put a lock on every door in the house. She said, "I'll just crawl down, I won't walk." So up another notch I went...

As I may have mentioned in a previous blog entry, her neuropsychologist told me that the only way to make a memory is sometimes to get angry, so I did. It wasn't difficult. The hard part is not yelling ALL THE TIME!

It's All About Attitude... and Having Smart Friends

I found a solution to two issues that have been bugging me. It's not a perfect solution, but it's good enough. First, my kids, 10 and 15, should be getting some kind of allowance, so they can learn to handle money and not bother me for their every whim. Sami, 15, is an obsessive saver, and Mikey, 10, is an obsessive spender, so both need to work on their money skills.

The other problem is that I didn't teach them to help out around here when they were younger, and while both do things for me when I ask/demand/threaten them with death, there's always the sighing, eye-rolling, and complaining to deal with.

In comes my new friend, Jen, host mother to one of my Korea tutoring students. She shows me the chart and system she developed for her two teen daughters. There's a list of chores and a dollar amount for each, depending on the complexity of the chore. There's also a weekly chart on which each girl marks the day and number of the chore she performed. During the school year, each girl is expected to do three chores per week, by bedtime on Sunday. Mom pays accordingly, by bedtime on Sunday. So the kids can earn more by doing more and harder chores, but if they don't do the minimum, they have to double up the following week for no payment at all. On the flip side, if Mom doesn't pay on time, she must pay double.

I adapted this to the chores I need to have done, lowered the fee for most chores (yes, I'm cheap) and raised the number of chores to 4 per week. It's working! I pay Sami an average of $7 per week for the chores she selects, and Mikey more like $5, but they're doing chores and lightening my load!

But here's where MY attitude comes in. Both kids have a habit of putting off their chores until the weekend, so I find myself announcing, "There's a dishwasher to unload!" or "The garbage can is full!" and often... nothing happens. I have to work on not getting angry, as they have a right to choose their chores and days to perform them. So far, we've come close to the "double chores for no money" deal, but at the last minute, they've found things to do on Sunday evenings for me. That's fair, and I'm working on not doing so much nagging and reminding about this.

Ok, So I'm Not Sherlock Holmes

I came home the other day and noticed that the back door, which leads to our deck, was practically pulled off the hinges and wouldn't close properly. If my daughter and her buddy hadn't been sitting in the living room, calmly blowing up Nazis on the Playstation 3, I would have suspected burglars. I found a screwdriver, fixed the door, patted myself on the back for handling this without requiring my husband's assistance, and went to the kitchen to get more coffee.
There I discovered a cabinet door also pulled off its hinges. Ok, it was getting a little weird now.
Hours passed, there was laundry to do and dinner to cook, and I stopped thinking about it.
In the middle of the meal, Betty looked up, stared at the back door for a long moment, and said, "I fell today!" Turns out, she was trying to let one of cats in or out (which I've asked her not to do about a million times), started to topple over, and grabbed the door knob to try to stay on her feet. It didn't work.
I asked, "Did you also fall in the kitchen?"
"Yes, I fell twice today. I forgot!" she said. She was excited to remember the falls because she was quite sore and couldn't remember why.
Fortunately, she wasn't badly hurt, and the doors were easily fixed.

Summer is Nearly Here

My kids are in their last week of school, Ra Youn goes home in two weeks, and we leave for the Grand Canyon about four days after that. I'm looking forward to giving up the school routine for a couple of months, but aside from that, I find myself in a crappy mood. DH ruined my weekend and I'm still boiling over with anger. I need to have it out with him, but I'm too angry to trust my mouth.

I miss my old neighborhood and my old friends, I can't seem to write, I'm endlessly crabby with MIL, and everybody around me disappoints me. It's my problem, not theirs, I know, so I have to work on myself.

At least I'm exercising. I'd like to make a giant bowl of popcorn and watch all the O'Reilly Factors on my DVR. I just may do that, as soon as Kim takes Betty out of here. Kim is my favorite person in the world at the moment.

Caring for the Caregiver

Me, that is. I'm 52, and people I know are starting to die. Okay, not many, but enough that I decided to put on my Big Girl Pants and start doing all those nasty tests that women over 50 are supposed to get: mammogram, bone density scan, colonoscopy, pap test, dermatology exam of a dark spot on my shoulder.

So I got a bad report on my pap test, did some nasty follow up tests, and it turned out I don't have cancer. That felt great!

The dermatologist was pretty sure I had a basal cell cancer, but the test came back negative. Also great!

I got a clear mammogram, although I don't get overly excited about these, as my mother found lumps in her breasts very soon after clear mammograms... twice.

My colon is a thing of beauty. (the test is no big deal, but drinking the stuff the night before was quite unpleasant. I drank less than half what you're supposed to, and it turned out not to matter.

Bone density came back normal.

So I'm pretty sure I'm destined to be hit by a bus.

I Need a Vacation to Relax from Getting Ready for my Vacation

We're going to the lovely Wisconsin Dells next week for Spring Break, mostly because it's within driving distance and we had timeshare points that were going to expire. The biggest headache is WHAT TO DO WITH BETTY? The Assisted Living center we usually use fired Joyce and Lillian, who were really good with Betty. I was just bitchy enough to call, pretend I didn't know this, but let them know that I couldn't possibly let Betty stay there if Joyce and Lillian weren't working there anymore. So Joyce will come here and stay with Betty, and the lovely Kim will drive her to the senior center as usual. I'm happy to pay Joyce directly--she's still looking for a new job.

All I have to do now is stock the house with the Veggie Straws that Betty lives on, and clean my bedroom, so Joyce doesn't find out what a crappy housekeeper I am.

Time to Take Inventory

1. My mother-in-law, the diabetic alzheimer patient, bought a milkshake on the way home with her driver yesterday, then ordered a gigantic rootbeer float at dinner. I didn't hear her order it, but I did sit there and watch her eat it. Now she's too sick to her stomach to take her pills. Who could have predicted that?

2. Our exchange student is lying in bed, unable to go to school because her period is so incredibly painful. She's upset that I'm not buying this story--her illnesses are usually timed beautifully to match something happening at school or some responsibility she's blown off that we're about to learn about. I have no power over this situation, which makes it extremely frustrating, if you can't tell.

3. Baby, one of our cats, peed on the family room carpet right in front of my son. She's been checked for urinary issues, but apparently, this is just behavioral.

4. My son has begun reflexively answering, "No. I'm sure. I'm totally sure" to my daily "Do you have homework? Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?" He finds the homework in the morning, just when he's supposed to be getting ready to go to school. Then he gets huffy and insulted when I check it and find errors.

5. My husband finally bought a toilet snake to deal with our perpetually clogged toilets, but never got around to actually using it. Now he can't find it.

6. My daughter hasn't ticked me off lately, but it's not even 10am yet.

Zen-Like Balance Returns to My Universe

Betty is better and it looks like she'll go to the Adult Day Care Center today! Devonna has given her a shower and she's all perky and healthy.

Mikey, on the other hand, says he has a stomach ache and needs to stay home from school. I'm going to make him stay in bed all day with books. No TV, no video games.

Which one of us will crack first?

Get Some Help!

Rule Number One for Cranky Caregivers: WHEN SOMEBODY OFFERS HELP, TAKE IT.

I spent too long on my old mantra: "I can handle it," instead of looking for help and accepting it. Now I have a VA-paid home healthcare aid giving Betty showers three times a week and Kim K. driving Betty to the senior daycare center three times a week. And, when Betty is well enough, she can spend all day at the senior daycare center on those days. In reality, her health is shaky, and she misses lots of her daycare days, but at least it's cause for hope...

That doesn't solve the problem of kids to pick up at endless afterschool activities, my wonderful husband who can't put food away (yeah, there's a story behind this), four people here suffering from the flu, and one of our cats who is peeing on throw pillows, but it helps.

My husband's problem: Being a typical guy, he does half a task, then is distracted by some bright shiny object (SQUIRREL!) and forget the rest. So a couple of nights ago, when I was lying in bed wishing for flu death, he ordered KFC for dinner. Yes, an heroic gesture.

But the next morning, when I got up, still feeling like crap, to get kids off to school, there was a sink full of dirty dishes which hadn't been rinsed, bags of uneated side dishes and chicken sitting out on the counter, and total mess everywhere. My 14-year-old daughter avoided death by explaining that she was the one who filled the dishwasher and ran it, though she didn't think to rinse the dishes that wouldn't fit. My husband first claimed to have put the food away (yes, he did put some of it in the refrigerator), but was SHOCKED to see that there were TONS OF IT still out. He tried to blame 14-year-old for this oversight, but wisely stopped mid-sentence and slunk upstairs.

When he came home for lunch (leftover KFC), he helped clean up the diarrhea his mother left on her bedroom floor, and made her bed again (I had already done three loads of laundry that morning). Yes, another heroic gesture. But guess what I discovered when I got up a few hours later and went into the kitchen? HE LEFT THE FOOD OUT AGAIN.