I know some people will hate me for this, but I love holiday music. Almost all of it – traditional carols, sacred hymns, pop/rock selections, novelty numbers. Just about anything except that one about the kid picking out Christmas shoes for his mom to die in. I spend the month of December belting out the lyrics of myriad winter celebration songs. Any time I find myself alone in my home or car.
I fondly recall the days of my childhood when I’d participate with enthusiasm in school choir programs, sing along with the radio in front of anyone, and generally enjoy the sound of my own voice. Back before I realized I was kind of terrible at singing.
By the time I reached my teen years, I kept my not-quite tune-making to myself. Other teens are not ones to let you keep your delusions of adequacy. In church, where everyone was expected to make a joyful noise, I lip-synched behind my hymnal.
During my young adult years I didn’t sing and didn’t sing. And I missed it. I missed being able have fun with a song for the simple pleasure of it, with no worries about how good I was, with no self-consciousness. For me, singing had become all self-consciousness and no pleasure. Then I had babies.
I sang to my babies while rocking them, and they didn’t criticize me. They even seemed to find some comfort in my voice. And as they got a little older, we sang Christmas carols and “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Old McDonald” and it was a blast. When I volunteered at preschool, I sang along even though there were other adults present, because I wanted to set a good example around embracing music without embarrassment. I *felt* embarrassed, but I tried not to show it. Singing was once again part of my life. It was a great unexpected gift that came with motherhood.
Then the kids got even older and we stopped doing any of that. I’ve spent the last few years keeping my vocal efforts a solitary activity. Secret even. Back to treating it as a shameful activity.
But today – today I went to the Christmas party at my mom’s nursing home. We had carols. I sang along, y’all. I was surrounded by 85 and 90-year-olds, many of whom suffer ailments that have pretty well trashed their voices. But most of them were giving it their best shot, so why shouldn’t I? Besides, my mom is one person who never said a negative word about my singing, no matter how it made her suffer. Some of the aides might have looked at me askance, but I had a good time. I think I even hit the correct notes a few times.
This was huge for me. I sang along. I didn’t hum, or stick to smiling and tapping my foot just off the beat. I sang. I’m ready for my participation award.
You’re back in your hometown for the holidays and you go to visit your Great Aunt Hilda at her nursing home. You give her a box of chocolates, ask how she’s doing, show her pictures of your kids, tell her a story about your new puppy…uh, discuss the weather…look at your watch. Seven minutes. Really, seven minutes into the visit and you’re out of things to talk about?
You could ask what’s new with Hilda, but you know her life is pretty static. Maybe the podiatrist was around last week and everyone got their toenails trimmed. But there’s only so much ground you want to cover on that topic. So what do you talk about? How can you pass the time pleasantly?
Here’s one idea:
Conversation starter cards. There are a variety of sets. This one happens to be what I own. Since I suffer from a generalized case of social awkwardness, I use them in different settings. I don’t always take the box along, often simply looking through it for ideas before I’m in a conversation-making situation. My kids and I have read through the cards on road trips. They can be fun to use with a group, especially a multi-generational one. I’ve taken the box with me when visiting my mom and it made for some good discussions. There are questions such as “Are there any unusual food combinations you like?” and “What’s the longest trip you’ve ever taken?”
This could lead to interesting reminiscences. I’ve heard some tantalizing tales about my mom’s life that were new to me. You might want to be ready to take notes, or even record the conversation for posterity.
Another idea is to take a deck of cards or simple board game with you. By the time someone’s in a skilled nursing facility, they’re probably not going to be with it enough to play duplicate bridge, but Crazy 8s might not be out of the question. Or checkers.
If you have a tablet and you know there’s an Internet connection, you can bookmark some short on-line videos and share them. Who doesn’t love to watch cute baby animals doing adorable things?
You could have an informal literary discussion. Bring a poem or short short story to read aloud and talk about it.
These are all ideas that have gone well for me. If anyone else has suggestions, I’d love to see them in the comments.
Just when it looked like we might have to move my mom to any place that had a Medicaid opening, no matter how close or far or bad or good, a bed came open for her in the facility where she already lived. I was seriously losing sleep over not knowing what we were going to do. I even bought a lottery ticket – an unusual move for me – because it was my one idea.
I’d read about people in places like New York, where housing is scarce, scanning the obituaries to try to get the first jump on newly vacant apartments. I always felt grateful not to have to resort to such measures, not to have to wish someone dead so I could have a place to live. Yeah, well, I went there. I knew the most likely way for Mom to get a Medicaid bed was for the current occupant to pass on. I’d find myself thinking “Please, please, let something open today.” Then I’d try to salve my conscience by amending the thought – “Um, because somebody’s kid got a job transfer and is moving their parent to the new city as well.” or “If it’s by someone dying, let it be somebody who is 100 or older.”
Then on a Monday a couple of weeks ago, the social worker called and said they had a room. I needed to come over the next day and facilitate the move. What a long day that was. I work a split shift on Tuesday. So I drove my son to school, worked 9-1, drove over and moved my mother to another wing of the building, went back and picked up my son from school, delivered him to home and went back in to work from 5-9 p.m. But yay! My wishes fulfilled!
Even moving to a new wing is an adjustment of course. I think anything is at age 89. There’s a new roommate, a different set of nurses, a different dining room and meal companions. But the activities are the same and my mom knows the building pretty well. And it’s so much better than having to move to a completely different facility, or even a different town, which was a real possibility. My mom has questioned me a few times about why she’s in a different room. Once she said, “Was this my idea or their’s?” I explain it to her again, but I’m not sure she gets it completely. Well, who does get Medicaid rules completely? Not I.
There was a lot of paperwork and many phone calls involved in the switch, and I’m still afraid I’m about to curse it all by posting this. There’s a part of me that’s afraid I’m going to get a call saying it was a mistake and she has to move out after all. Meantime, I’m working my way to the point where I breathe again. I haven’t seen the actual Medicaid approval yet. I think I’ll finally exhale when I get that.
I’ve developed a sort of obsession about my own finances and the desire not to go through the same things in my elder years. But I know there’s a lot you can’t control in life. My mom worked harder than anyone I’ve ever known, and was honest and spent her life helping others. But that seems to mean little in our society when it comes to getting the care you need in your old age. It’s more about how much money you have. I try to stay away from politics on this blog, but I will end this post by saying universal single-payer health care sure would make life better.
Per his wishes, my dad was buried wearing a Kansas City Royals necktie with his suit. That was seven years ago. He and I didn’t always have a great relationship, but there was one subject that united us and created a bond – baseball. I grew up in Kansas City during the Royals’ heyday. Everyone in the family liked the team, but my dad and I were the true die-hard fans, shushing people in the car on the way home from church because the game was on the radio. I was the only one who followed closely enough to discuss statistics with him, to join in the analysis of whether the manager was making a feather-brained decision or a smart move. In the overall scheme of things, I knew he had a favorite kid and it wasn’t me. But as long as we stayed in the realm of baseball, I was his golden child.
Here’s what I remember. My dad hated sacrifice bunts to the point of vein-popping apoplexy. “You’re deliberately getting an out! How is that smart? The point of the game is not to get out!” I can still hear his voice in my head. As much as he hated bunts, he loved base stealing, and the Royals came through for him. They’ve always been a speedy team. He was a number one fan of “that George Brett kid.” And Dad despised the A’s for being deserters. He never forgave Charlie Finley for moving them out of Kansas City. Dad’s relationship with the Royals was a second marriage of sorts. Any time the new spouse could show up the ex, he reveled.
During the last few years of my father’s life, he was pretty far gone with dementia. It was difficult and heart-wrenching a lot of the time, but there were compensations. For instance, he didn’t know how terrible the Royals were during those years. Sit him in front of a TV with a baseball game on it and he’d be happy, thinking every hit was made by then-retired Brett and every stolen base was taken by Royals’ former short-stop Fred Patek. I spared him the truth of the team’s win-loss record.
Through the past 29 years of mostly losing records and post-season non-glory, I’ve always believed the Royals would rise again. No fair-weather fan am I. Not a deserter like Charlie Finley, I stick with my home team through good times and bad. And good again, at long last. They squeaked their way into a wild card slot this year. Aptly named, as the game was one of the wildest post-season contests I’ve ever seen, with the Royals coming from behind late in the game, eventually overtaking Oakland in twelve innings, with one improbable run after another.
Hey dad, it’s Blue October. Hey, look! The Royals beat the A’s to move on to the playoffs. The A’s, Dad! And our team tied a record for most stolen bases in a post-season game, with seven. You would have loved it. Dad, George Brett is working in their front office now, and his reaction to the final run has gone viral. Um, viral means something different from what it used to, by the way.
They won the first game of the playoffs, too, going extra innings again. I stayed up until midnight, watching to the end. Remember how you used to let me stay up if it was for an important baseball game? I’ll probably stay up late again tonight for the next game. I wish you could watch it with me, Dad.
“The speed limit here is 50, so you might want to pick up the pace a little.” What am I thinking, putting my life into the hands of a 16-year-old? Strapping myself into a metal bucket and putting him in control of hurtling it down the road without killing us? Telling him to drive faster? How is that sane? But he’s got his learner’s permit and needs his practice hours.
I have a new criterium for how people should plan their families, in case anyone should ask my advice. Remember, those adorable babies are going to grow into teens. How many kids should you have? How many ride-alongs with student drivers can your nerves handle? There’s your number.
Awww…AGGHHHHH!!
At least my kids are both pretty conscientious and not reckless. The first time I rode with my son, I joked as I climbed into the passenger seat, “My life in your hands.”
“So, no pressure?” he responded.
Though the day-to-day responsibilities and constant tasks that come with little kids can seem unrelenting, in some ways it was easier for me, psychologically, being the one in charge of getting everything done and keeping us all alive. Of course my goal is to see my kids grow into responsible adults, but it’s hard turning over that control. Oh, yeah, maybe I have a few control issues. I have been known to re-bag my groceries before putting them in the back of my van.
As my kids got big enough to start helping, it wasn’t too hard for me to live with their methods and results for sweeping the kitchen floor, for example. So a few crumbs got missed. No biggy. But as they grew, so did their responsibilities, and some came with real stakes. Getting careless with a power mower is a lot more dangerous than getting careless with a broom.
My older kid is known to stay up in the middle of the night and cook things while the rest of us sleep. This can be wonderful, waking up to freshly baked goods. But I have to trust that the stove will get turned off and we won’t be burned in our beds. And now, in the car, I ride in the passenger seat sometimes, trying to push down thoughts about how if they mess this up we could all die.
For years, they’ve had to trust me not to leave the stove on, not to wreck us in the car, not to be careless in an important area and allow the worst to happen. I know it’s natural for the balance to shift. Sometimes there’s a sudden and dramatic change. A parent has a stroke or an accident. Sometimes it happens more gradually.
It goes both ways.
It’s likely my kids will eventually have more responsibility for me than I have for them. I know it can’t be easy for my mom, entrusting her life into my hands. In every aspect she has to let go and hope she raised me right. She doesn’t have control over her money, what doctors she sees or even where she lives. Not that I don’t get her input on anything. But it’s up to me to make the ultimate decisions and try not to blow it. Her life in my hands. No pressure, right?
I just got back from spending a couple of days in a place without Internet or a cell phone signal. Apparently the world survived without my constant check-ins. The husband, kids and I stayed in a state park – Missouri has wonderful state parks – about two hours from home. Not quite the European treks some of my kids’ friends are experiencing this summer, nor the Alaskan cruise more than one of my acquaintances has taken recently. But it provided a much-needed refocusing for me.
Right before I left I was a hot mess and came close to canceling the whole thing, feeling overwhelmed by how much work it takes to get ready for any kind of trip. I didn’t want to have to plan for meals, or grocery shop, or find people to cover for me on projects at work, or pack, or catch up on the laundry, or arrange for someone to feed the pets. It was all too much. Nothing was worth it.
That was displaced emotion. Really, I was overwhelmed by everything else in my daily life, the things I needed to get away from for a brief time. And, too, the general state of the world, with wars and climate change and so on. Plus I was a little freaked about the possibility that some major development with my mom’s health or well-being would occur while I was unreachable.
But I left my brother’s phone number with the nursing home and the park office phone number with my brother, and off we went. For 48 tremendous hours. I’m so glad that anxiety-ridden me got over herself and let me have this experience. Removing myself from contact with much of the outside world helped me stop fretting about it. And having the whole family removed from this contact helped us be with each other. With my kids growing up, I’m not sure how much more of that I’ll get.
My 16-year-old took his guitar and spent hours practicing, something he has more trouble getting around to at home. I read a big chunk of a novel (The Pure Gold Baby by Margaret Drabble, if you’re interested) without the usual mosquito buzz of guilt about all of the tasks I was neglecting. The 19-year-old also got a lot of reading done. My husband found the opportunity to interact with the river via his fishing poles, something he doesn’t get to do often enough. We spent time simply sitting around a campfire, talking, also something we can’t always fit in at home, what with everyone having different schedules and jobs and school and various responsibilities.
Look at the lack of city and anyone hurrying anywhere outside our front door.
We threw in a little adventure, too, as I knocked an item off my bucket list. I have wanted to try ziplining from the moment I first heard of it, four or five years ago. My frugal self found some on-line coupons for a zipline tour a short drive from our cabin. It was still pricey, but come on – bucket list. We all went and it was a thrill. I loved it. The entire odyssey involved four ziplines and three suspension bridges: over the parking lot, over the trees, over the river. I know it was adventuresome because we had to fill out paperwork beforehand stating our insurance coverage and preferred hospital, plus signing off that we, the parents, gave our minor son permission to risk his life. The wording may have a been a little different, but that was the gist.
Over the river and over the woods…
We did a tour of Meramec Caverns because, as my older child says, “You can’t go anywhere in Missouri without ending up on a cave tour.” Pretty much the truth. If you go, expect to do a lot of walking. The cave system is huge. And fascinating.
Stalactites
Cave popcorn
Underground beauty
Our tour guide told us most cave formations grow at a rate of around an inch every 100 years. Then again, she also told us this cave was used as a hideout by Jesse James and I’ve heard that about every cave in the state, so… But some quick on-line research backs up the idea that the stalactites, stalagmites and columns we saw have been thousands upon thousands of years in the making. I find that comforting somehow. There’s a constancy to it that feels so dependable.
If I had to choose a favorite part of the trip, I’d say looking at the stars. I live in a city. Not a huge city, but I’m right in it – not nearby or even in a suburban area. For the most part it suits me. I can walk to work, and to the grocery store and the bank. My street always gets plowed when it snows. But I don’t get to see much of the night sky. There’s a street light directly in front of my house and another one right behind.
At our rental cabin, there were no artificial outdoor lights. And we were treated to two cloudless nights in a row with no moon in sight. We couldn’t see much from our “yard” due to the tree canopy. But a short, flashlight-illuminated walk led us to an open field where I witnessed more stars than I’ve ever before seen at one time. It was the sky as my mom and dad grew up with it, out in the Arkansas countryside. The first night, only my husband and I went stargazing. I had a Moment there with him. I don’t know how to describe it. We could see the Milky Way so clearly, our galaxy. And there we stood, little specks on one planet, part of this whole huge galaxy, part of the whole huge universe. Yet somehow the atoms had come together to form the two of us and the two of us had found each other. We were there, hand-in-hand, so close in the middle of all that vast space.
The second night, the whole family trooped down to the field. My firstborn went inside before too long, claiming an existential crisis, but I suspect there was a DVD inside a laptop, waiting to be viewed. Or maybe it was both. I know lots of people speak of the existential crisis they feel upon witnessing the vastness of It All. But I’ve never experienced that.
My favorite Twitter feeds come from NASA and individual astronauts. I can’t get enough of the photos. When I see the earth as a whole, or a space phenomenon like a nebula, or a field of stars, I feel the same kind of comfort I got in the cave. I don’t feel insignificant, or even worry about whether I’m insignificant. I’m awed that I get to be a part of it. It All. I always have been and always will be. So it is for you, too. The Universe recycles, you know. My atoms weren’t always me as I am now, but they were here, somewhere, being. And once I’ve died, they’ll go on to be something else.
The Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh.
I’m reminded of a couple of quotes:
Nothing in the entire universe ever perishes, believe me, but things vary, and adopt a new form. The phrase being born is used for beginning to be something different from what one was before, while dying means ceasing to be the same. Though this thing may pass into that, and that into this, yet the sum of things remains unchanged. – Ovid
If you can see a thing whole,” he said, “it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives…But close up, a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life’s a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern.” – Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Dispossessed”
I’ve been losing the pattern. I need to see the stars every once in a while to remind me of the beauty, the continuity, the whole.
Nursing home drama can be intense. “Orange is the New Black” has nothing on “Ensure is the New Martini.” Which is why I’ve moved my mom twice within the past week and she’s now in the same room where she started out.
She’s been in a two-person room, with a shared bathroom between it and the one-person room next door. Recently the facility placed a man in the room next door, which is very upsetting to my mom’s old-fashioned sensibilities. She did not care to share a bathroom with a different gender, even though they’re obviously not both in there at the same time. Meanwhile, Mom’s roommate moved out. And one of the ladies two doors down from my mom moved out. The obvious solution was to emigrate my mother down two rooms. She’d be in an end room with its own bathroom. And her new roomie had always been nice to her.
The problem is the new roomie had been close friends with her previous roomie before either of them ever moved in. So she was mourning a loss, and people aren’t always rational when they’re mourning. I think that’s what led to her yelling at my mother to get out of her room and saying she didn’t like her, before then trying to remove my mom’s things, as much as she could while shuffling along with her walker. I was already on my way for a visit when the nurse called me to tell me about the kerfluffle.
I found my mom dabbing at wet eyes, and the head nurse speaking with the roommate, telling her she could have ended up with someone much worse than my mom in the new companion department. The lady apologized and said she’d do better, but my poor mom was good and scared. She asked to go back to her old room before they gave it to someone else and the option was gone. I felt like I did when someone was mean to one of my kids in grade school.
Usually, my mother manages to stay out of the drama, but there is always something going on. And really, Ensure is the new martini. It’s the after-dinner drink of choice in the skilled nursing setting. I think it’s only a matter of time before there’s a TV show about a nursing home, in a knock-off version of “Orange is the New Black.” There won’t be all of the sex, of course, but there will be the occasional resident stripping. Good thing they’re usually too arthritic to get very far before a staff member intervenes.
Think about it. It’s a facility filled with people who didn’t necessarily choose to be there. People from all walks of life, who otherwise might not have had much to do with each other. Some have connections with the outside and some are on their own. I’ve heard of one instance where a visitor smuggled in some hooch and possibly more. There are cliques and shifting alliances, and you have to watch your stuff to keep it from walking off to someone else’s room. That last doesn’t really happen too much, and when it does, it’s usually a matter of confusion more than anything. But it does happen some. I’ve even witnessed parallel scenes of residents being made to shower when they were pretty resistant to the idea, though it was done much more gently and with more respect in the real life nursing home than in the fictional prison. And no, it wasn’t my mom involved – she’s still meticulous about her hygiene.
I hope whoever moves in with my mom next is a real sweetheart. And a little part of me hopes whoever moves in with the other lady is not quite as much of one. But the bigger part of me knows I should try to be understanding. Mostly, I hope next week is boring.
No, that’s not a lyric from a country song. It’s my life and how I’ve tried to live within my means even when my budget has been as tight as the shoes my kids were constantly outgrowing. We’ve eaten a lot of beans and rice. Hey, it’s not only cheap, it’s tasty and healthy. The $4 jeans refers to my penchant for buying clothes at thrift stores. It’s not only clothes – I rarely buy anything new.
My mother grew up in dire poverty, and thus learned to stretch a penny like nobody’s business. She passed these skills on to me. I’ve discovered if you look hard enough, you can find almost anything used. Probably my most serendipitous find was a $20 car-top carrier, purchased a week before we were leaving for a cross-country camping road trip. Here are some other bargains I’ve found at thrift stores and garage sales.
Look beyond the plant to the lace curtains. $10 for three sets. $15 wooden doll house. It came without the furniture, but we added that a room at a time each Christmas and birthday. My kids played the heck out of this for a good chunk of their childhood years. $5 bread machine. I’ve wanted one of these for years, and fufilled my wish a few weeks ago. Thanks to the gluten-free fad, there’s a thrift store glut on these. It works! Yum. It doesn’t get better than free. Found this table at the Curbside Mall when a neighbor was moving out. Snagged it before the trash truck did. A few years ago, my son was obsessed with domino toppling. We found these fun sets at a thrift store for 50 cents each. Bought from another neighbor who was moving. Multi-game table for $25. Our house was (and remains to an extent) a fixer-upper. When we moved in, we had no overhead light in the master bedroom. But $8 spent at a garage sale combined with my hubster’s labor and electrical know-how resolved that problem. Everyone had a jean jacket but me. I felt left out. Until I found a rack of them at a consignment store. $10. $2 shower curtain.$10 kitchen knife set, including a sharpener. Yes, I know, my grout needs help. See the fixer-upper comment above. It’s on the list. $2 leather handbag. I’ve carried this for three years now. It does a fit a good-sized book, which is an important feature.
My kids both had birthdays this week. They’re now 19 and 16 years old respectively. The 19-year-old is a commuter student, living at home while attending college. Witnessing my kids enter their young adult years, I find myself thinking a lot about my parenting “career” and how reality has or hasn’t meshed with my expectations.
It seems I know many people with new babies and/or young children right now, too Because life goes on, I suppose. Hearing the conversations and concerns of these newer parents brings back so many memories and brings forward an insight. Please forgive me for clicheing here, but now that I have a longer view, I’m more aware of what it means to miss the forest for the trees.
I see these earnest discussions on-line, the same kinds in which I engaged back in the day, about things like whether it’s okay to use the words “good job” to encourage your kids. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. If you don’t use those words, or you do, it’s not going to make or break your child. If you love your kid and make them a priority and try your best, then you’ll pretty much do your best for them. It’s okay if you look at a drawing they made and say “Good job.” And it’s okay if you say, “I especially like the shade of blue you used for the sky.” And it’s okay if what you say is, “I love it.” And it’s okay if you say “You really worked hard on that.” What they care about is sharing their joy and accomplishment with you. You’re not going to give them a bad character by choosing one set of words over another. I wish I had spent less energy worrying about things like this over the years.
At least I’ve learned to stop clicking on links to articles that recount the ways in which well-meaning moms and dads (usually moms) are ruining their kids. Ruining them, I tell you. Because they help too much or too little with homework, or they praise too much or too little, or they’re too critical or too accepting of clothing choices. Which brings me to the next lesson I’ve learned as a parent. A million or more people are trying to make money by feeding into your desire to know how to do this sometimes bewildering job. Be selective about where you get advice. I’ve read a few things that helped me in a practical way and many things that were waste of the alphabet. In general, I’ve benefitted by reading accounts by other parents who admit they don’t have all the answers, who want to share the struggle and joy and what worked for them. I’ve found no benefit in articles and books that issue heavy-handed judgments for, I don’t know – spending a few minutes looking at your phone while you push your kid on a swing. I was going to mention specific books, but I think I’ll save that for a separate post.
I do have a few other gems to share, however, now that I’m an all-wise and knowing mom who has mostly raised her kids (ha!) The first being, that you never get to the point where you feel you have all the answers, or if you do, that’s when you get into real trouble. The life of a parent is a life of continual surprises. Here are a few more things, as they occur to me randomly:
*There is no finish line. When I was trying to decide whether to have kids, I’d think to myself “Well, it’s an 18-year commitment.” 19 years in, I laugh at young me. I see now my mom is 89 and still concerned about her children, still wanting to make sure we’re okay, still offering advice for treating that head cold.
*You get what you get. You can’t custom manufacture your children. They come into your life with personalities and characters and talents and struggles that are not of your choosing. A friend of mine once said she thought of it as tending a garden where someone else picked out the plants. A daisy is a daisy, a sunflower is a sunflower, and a bell pepper plant is a bell pepper plant. You can’t change one into another. What you can do is work on nurturing and creating conditions to allow your daisy to thrive as a daisy or your bell peppers to thrive as bell peppers.
*Keeping with the garden analogies, you can’t force a plant to grow by pulling on it. Again, you can nurture it and do your best to give it conditions in which it will grow and bloom. And that’s all. You can’t make your children reach developmental milestones on your schedule, or at all. Often, I found if I was having a real struggle teaching my kids something, the best tactic was wait and try again later. As a small example: my son didn’t learn to tie his shoes until he was seven. But then he learned in five minutes and I never had to show him again. Because he was ready. True story. In the meantime, I gave thanks for Velcro.
*Things will happen to your children over which you have no control. Sometimes these things will change the way you parent. A few years ago my son had a serious health crisis, involving major surgery and the need to keep him from being too active for several weeks. All of my carefully constructed policies about computer time went straight out the window. Also, because I had been so afraid he might die, I became much more indulgent in fulfilling my kids’ desires. It wasn’t a rational or planned response; it was pure emotion that made me say “Whatever they want, I’m going to get it for them if I can.” The pendulum swung back soon enough and I adopted a more balanced approach. But, boy howdy, did that event put my mind into focusing on the present, since the future is so uncertain. (He’s healthy now, by the way.)
*There’s nothing like seeing your child imitating your behavior to motivate you in breaking bad habits.
*Forgiveness is essential. Model it. Expect to need it.
*Don’t be too attached to your things. They’ll get broken or lost. One of my kids has broken a total of four windows over the years, each time in a new and creative way. One pulled the sliding door of a minivan right off its track, when we were already running late, and it was raining. People before things. Make it a mantra.
*Once you have a child, your comfort zone is a thing of the past. You will primarily reside outside of it. The upside is that you’ll experience a lot of personal growth. I’ve gone a long way in overcoming my own social anxiety because I’ve been forced in my role as mom to call strangers on the phone for various things, interact with teachers and other parents, and have awkward but necessary conversations. I’ve found myself in the principal’s office for the reasons you don’t want to be sitting there. I’ve reached out with invitations in ways I used to avoid for fear of rejection because I didn’t want to model fear-based relationships to my kids. I’ve found myself calling a woman I barely knew to tell her that her kid had pilfered Grandpa’s prescription pain pills after I found out about it accidentally. And you know what? I survived all of those things. I’ve discovered that discomfort is temporary and not fatal. And this discovery has helped me cope in other areas of life, including my paid work.
Despite my occasional fantasy of packing my car and driving away to find a studio apartment somewhere by myself, under an assumed name, I’d say motherhood has been good for me. It’s taught me a lot about life and generally made me a better person.
UPDATE: I’ve made a couple of corrections below, where I mangled Debi’s intent on her suggestions. Sorry about that. Also, an addition at the bottom.
Since my mother is in a skilled nursing facility, I don’t have to worry about meals. But for many adult children of older parents, a big concern is making sure Mom or Dad is eating enough of the right foods. If you live nearby – close enough to visit at least a couple of times a month – there are steps you can take to help.
The following suggestions come from Debi Boggs (Thanks, Debi!):
While visiting, cook in large batches – enough for a meal and at least two servings of leftovers. Freeze the leftovers in single-serving portions. Use resealable bags if washing dishes is a hardship, or something your older relative just doesn’t want to deal with. You can be extra green in your own home to make up for this.
Pizza “kits” make an easy meal. Buy one or two balls of pizza dough at the store, quarter them, stretch them into pizza rounds, and place each round on a sheet of parchment paper. Each quarter will fit into a gallon-sized resealable bag. Take two small bags for each large, pouring the correct amount of sauce in one and the correct amount of shredded cheese in the other. Place these in the larger bags. With a marker, write assembly and baking instructions on the outside of the gallon bags. These kits will stack easily in the freezer.
Roasted vegetables also freeze well and are easy to microwave.
Make a grocery trip and stock the kitchen with a significant inventory of low-prep or no-prep food items: oatmeal, fruit cups (look for the ones packed in real fruit juice), low-sodium soups, coffee, tea, yogurt with the latest possible expiration date, pre-chopped salad, frozen brown rice, canned vegetables. Of course, fresh is healthier, but canned veggies keep for a long time and are a much better option than going hungry.
Whether Mom or Dad is doing the grocery shopping, or having someone else do it for them, a standard grocery list is a good idea. Print and laminate a list of items they consume on a weekly basis. This way, the list can be carried in a purse and re-used.
For those on a budget, check out Aldi’s if there’s one in your area. They usually have the best prices on plain yogurt, canned goods and oatmeal.
The idea is to make it as easy as possible to get good nutrition.
Anyone else have handy tips? Feel free to share in the comments.
Gen BLT 