Chocolate is a great saviour. In the middle of the night. In the afternoon. Before breakfast. Today has been one of those rampaging, open-up the chipits bag and scarf down chocolate before I kill someone kind of days. It is not like anything is different: drops in the eyes, children's breakfasts, mother-in-law's breakfast, bring a glass of water upstairs to her room, bring fruit upstairs (wonder why I couldn't have brought both up together), get annoyed for no apparent reason and wish I wasn't so immature, do the lunch scene, repeat water routine with the same fruity questions and begin to regret this whole situation. The children are so very helpful to their grandmother, my husband is so very patient and I am the one being driven crazy and I know, I really and truly know, it's not that bad. I personally know people in worse situations with ill seniors and angry family members and who get a whole lot more frustrated than me. This is a good place for my mother-in-law. I know this. But sometimes it really sucks (I honestly can't think of a better word.)
I would love to say this post was inspired by some awful event, that my mother-in-law has been inordinately selfish, that the children went wild and out of control, that my husband is some ignoramus, but we are all trying and some times it is just hard. It is not polite to say the whole family is waiting for my mother-in-law to die but as she retreats into her room and her memories, it is what we are doing. Unless, of course, she is in a mood; in which case, I am perfectly justified in resenting the current situation. It becomes frustrating in the not-knowing: I don't know what my mother-in-law wants. My husband says to leave her and if she wants something, she'll tell us. But every time I pass her room, she looks out at me and I know she wants something, so I ask, "Do you want something?" A hundred per cent of the time, she does want something: water, fruit, chocolate cake....
Just on a tangent for a moment, we are now going through 4 kilos of sugar a month. My husband couldn't believe it when we ran out of sugar for the second time this summer. I have told him his mother eats a lot of sugar but he wouldn't believe me. Now, he knows. For sure, his mother eats A LOT of sugar; my children don't even put sugar on their cereal!
Anyhow, thanks for the release. Somewhere out there in cyberspace, I know another woman is taking care of her mother-in-law and feels a moment's respite just knowing she is not alone....and she can feel guilt free munching on a Coffee Crisp or Hershey Bar or O'Henry or chocolate chips from the bulk store...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I could hug you just for even voicing the frustration that I feel sometimes and my mother-in-law neither lives with us nor is that old. She lives down the street and is 83 but she comes by... constantly. For 7 minutes visits. Sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. She never takes off her coat or shoes to sit and visit -- which I am assuming is her aim. She also calls at least 2 times a day, often to tell me what the weather is like -- when it's obviously the same weather I am experiencing being only 3 blocks away. I could go on.
ReplyDeleteNone of these things are bad things and really are not worth complaining about but they have made me consume the chocolate chips at 9 am as well and I felt you would want to know this. And smile. Oh and by the way, she NEVER says thank you in regular conversation to anyone.