Timing

I wish there was some way to get Mom back onto a normal day/night cycle. Last night she went to bed at her regular time and all seemed well (she got up only once to go to the bathroom)--as far as I knew. I woke at four in the morning to find her light on and door open and her not in her room.

She was in the living room on the couch, in the dark, eating the last of her dry breakfast cereal by the handful from the wax paper inner bag she'd pulled out of the cereal box. She was very co-operative as I shepherded her back to her room.

This morning I fixed pancakes for breakfast since there was no more of her cereal available. I should say I made the batter since I suspected she wouldn't rise on time and didn't want to actually make the pancakes before she did. When I heard her in the hallway about 11:00 a.m., I fired up the griddle. Half an hour later she still hadn't made it out into the dining room. I checked on her and she was back in her room making and remaking her bed in a vain attempt to find her glasses.

Thinking she could have left them almost anywhere during her ramblings last night, I searched the entire house only to find them folded neatly on her bedside table.

She finally sat down for a short stack and coffee at noon. When she was done she carefully took a piece of tissue, daubed it into the remaining syrup on her plate, and began to cut it with her fork.

I said, "Mom, what are you doing? You can't eat that!"

"Why not?"

"Because, it's not food. It's a Kleenex."

"It is? I couldn't tell what it was."

"Yes, it is. Are you still hungry? I can fix you something else."

She stared at her plate for a moment.

"Are you still hungry?" I repeated.

"I guess so," she admitted.

I fixed her an egg and toast and more coffee. I think that counts as lunch so maybe we're all caught up now.

The Continuing Accelerating Slide

Generally Mom has been holding her own lately but occasionally some things in her brain just don't connect or don't connect properly.

Yesterday I made pancakes for breakfast. Mom recognized that it wasn't Sunday and enjoyed them immensely. When she was done she proceeded to mop her plate with a facial tissue from which she then tried to suck the extra syrup. When I took it away from her she said, "Just because it's called a Kleenex doesn't make it wrong." No. And that's not why I took it away.

A couple of days ago I gave her a fresh load of cleaned laundry of hers direct from the dryer for her to fold and put away. She took everything to her room and while there decided it would be a good idea, for some reason, to change clothes. She came back out wearing a pullover shirt as a kind of skirt. She had managed to stretch the neck enough to pull it over her hips. The arms hung limp and empty at her waist. When I pointed this out to her, she stopped for a moment, looked down, and said, "Well, so I am." She refused to change again since she was planning on going to bed soon so I made her promise not to do it again. We'll see.

She's been very good at remembering which day it is recently and she's been reading a lot.

One step forward, two steps back. http://thatblognobodyreads.blogspot.com/2011/09/accelerating-slide.html

Idees Fixe

For the last four or five days Mom has been having little repetitive OCD sessions where she'll sit for maybe a half hour or more studying a catalog she got from Vermont Country Store. She's stuck on one page, and one offering, in particular. As a result there are several pieces of paper lying around near her all bearing one or more variations of the following inscription in her crabbed chicken-scratch handwriting: "Maple Syrup $19.95 Buttermilk Pancake Mix $8.95".

My brother noticed the other day and asked her "What's all this for?"

"I want these for Bob's birthday presents," she said. (Both of their birthdays are coming up next month, a week apart.) "They're a surprise."

"I'm Bob," Bob said.

She looked at him and said, "Oh, Damn."

We're thinking of just going to the supermarket for supplies and making pancakes for breakfast on both birthdays.