It’s Tuesday.  And my car didn’t even turn over when I tried to leave for Mum and Dads this morning when it was -5.  Mr R did magic with jump leads though and luckily (for this set of circumstances) it’s 50 miles to Mum and Dads so there was time for the battery to recharge. I still made Mum pray for the car to start when we left their house for Tesco, and when we left Tesco to go back though. (she did, and she praised the car for succeeding too. It was very cute.)

A while back when I was really struggling when I visited Mum because we just seemed to rub each other up the wrong way, Sister 1 told me to treat Mum like a child.  I couldn’t bring myself to – she is my Mum and is a grown woman.  But my sister was right; an awful lot of the time her brain isn’t that of a grown woman, and treating her as if it is has the same effect of treating a young child like a grown up – she just doesn’t get it.  So that’s what I started consciously doing.

And I think that must be why for the third week running we had a really good day.  We walked around Tesco for waaay longer than we needed to again, with Mum proudly pushing the trolley (And I did the chicken impression again to attempt to get mum to remember ‘eggs’. – still doesn’t work, but it did make her – and a few other shoppers – giggle). I smiled and agreed that of course we could go to a different cashier when Mum announced a lot too loudly that she ‘didn’t want to go to the man to pay as he didn’t look very good and she just didn’t like the look of him…’  His Tesco’s colleague and the other shoppers nearby who heard this pronouncement all seemed to find the humour in it, luckily, as we found a lady cashier who was more to Mums liking…. 😬

Back at her home, todays dish was lasagne.  A word that mum could not retain at all.  We popped on Abba (the anchor I mentioned last week seems to be working still) and started singing as we got out the ingredients.

I was under the impression that things that you have done or known for years are ones you retain, but – for example –  while Mum knew what she had to do with a grater she couldn’t work out how to do it.  And frankly she is dangerous with a ladle and hot mince.  But we laughed through it all and when she got things wrong or totally forgot what we were doing she just waved kitchen implements at me in a slightly maniacal way (the sharp knife was a little too scary though and I had to take that away…)

“You need to add some seasoning Mum.  Any ideas what you could use?” eventually, with clues got the response ‘salt’ and then….’vicar’.  So we added salt and vicar to the mince. 😬

‘Wooden spoon’ has totally disappeared from her mind so I popped one in my back pocket and tested her on what it was every few minutes.  I think she might have got it after an hour or so.

“What do you do with a wooden spoon, Mum?”

“Cook”

“Yes, you do, but I meant what sort of action?” (miming ‘stirring’)

“Shake! No, stroke”

I stroked Mum with the wooden spoon and she had to rush off to the toilet because “you are making me laugh too much and I am going to wet myself, Pog!”

When I left today I had to take a few loads to the car. As I came back in the house, Mum jumped out of a doorway and shouted “Boo!”.  It made me and Dad laugh, as that isn’t really Mum.  Maybe it’s Little girl Mum though.  And she can be very cute.

A while back a client talked about her Mum disappearing from her due to dementia and called it ‘the long goodbye’.  It’s such a good description of this weirdness.  Mum as we knew her went with her stroke and now it feels like we are travelling back in time with her.  Our family choose to view as much in life as we can with humour – it’s how we are in the good times and the bad.  And telling these sorts of stories – with love, rather than for a cheap laugh – keeps that humour going.  But I said I’d keep this honest, so yes, there are moments that are sad.  So sad.  The whole situation is.  I have friends with parents the same age as mine and they are well and living a good life the way mine should be.  And that makes me sad for my Mum and Dad, and for me and my sisters.

But it is what it is.  And this week we had fun and we made four lasagnes.  And Dad is probably still panicking about whether they will all fit in the freezer, or if they should just eat lasagne for the rest of the week… (Sorry, Dad!)

It was another good Tuesday. 🙂