Mama Birthday 2019

The mama shows no signs of slowing down. Physically, that is. She's at a good stable place and has been hanging out there on a steady plateau for about 8 months. This is good, because it means that my siblings and I aren't at each others' throats about her care. The mama has two great caregivers, one of whom is very beloved, and it's all pretty good.

There are still issues with where she lives, though. We never speak of Alzheimer's. Everybody in charge at her community knows Mom's deal, but we all politely dance around the subject for as long as we can. Sometimes the dance  is more like the plot of an elaborate caper movie. Such was the case this past weekend.

We've gotten notice that due to seating considerations, our caregiver isn't allowed to sit with the mama in the dining room. We want to find a way to skirt the rule. In addition, there are new caregiver guidelines and forms to fill out. So our weekend with the mama kicked off with an hour and fifteen minute phone call between we three daughters, and the discussions continued all weekend, while we were taking care of Mom. Bigsis would watch the mama while I answered middlesis' emails and followup emails. I was also turning word docs into pdfs and filling them out for people and sending them to mrguy so he could print. Bigsis and I would recap for hours after the mama was asleep. One of us would be on mama duty during the night, as well, waking up with her when her motion alarm goes off. 

When we returned from our trip, mrguy ended up meeting me at Mom's to deliver the prints so that I could hide them for the caregivers to sign. Madness. And not much fun, if this wasn't already clear.

I took some good pictures, though.

Our drive was absolutely gorgeous:

The annual shrimp cocktail at our lunch place is worth the steep price:

And the mama looked spiffy in her birthday socks. These knitted shoes are the ones we finally found that fit her feet and feel nice for her. We did not buy them from the Russian guy (who I swear still tries to call me, but I've blocked his number).

Next year my sis and I think that we'll make what is now a whole weekend activity into a really long drive instead of staying over. This is getting way too hard.