Food Stuffs

This morning began with my head completed filled with snot. I have pretty bad allergies in CT, which I knew to expect, but this morning was an unwelcome reminder of how bad it gets. (And yes mom- I'm taking meds). Anyway, I got up around 7:30 and had time to get some coffee ready for me, tea for Grammy and check email before Grammy came down

Grammy's morning routine is usually hanging out in her room until she hears someone downstairs. She'll get dressed and make her bed. Then when she comes down she takes her pills, has tea and cereal with blueberries. The past couple of days it has been routine to get on my case for being up so early. She'll tell me that I don't need to get up for her, that I should go back to bed, and that someone my age should sleep until noon. :) I had that time when I was 14-17. This morning, thankfully, I didn't get the lecture.

Instead this morning she decided to pull up her shirt and show me her bra, because she was complaining that she doesn't like it. I mean really, just imagine Grammy of all people pulling up her shirt to show you what’s under it. Then she did again to show me that she was just wearing a dickie (?). I don’t even know how to spell it because I certainly didn’t grow up with it in my fashion repertoire. It's just funny because Old Grammy would have never done that. My idea of my grandmother is as a very proper and prudish person (as with most people and their grandmother's I imagine). Later we got to enjoy a second awkward moment when the Nate Berkus show was all about sex and your sex life in the bedroom. I went for a run just in time.

Anyway, today I figure I’ll talk about food since that is a constant topic with Grammy and she has had an interesting change in behavior regarding eating. I always remember Grammy as someone who enjoyed food, ate a healthy amount and constantly wanted to feed you. Now she is always making sure that we are fed and have enough to eat (by asking us every hour or so), but she clearly is very uncomfortable with the idea of her eating. This could be due to a couple of changes. She definitely was always thin and active, and maybe now that she isn’t moving around nearly as much she thinks that she shouldn’t eat as much. It could be because she is used to preparing everything for herself and now she feels uncomfortable to rely on others to make her meals. Or it could be because she recognizes that her life began to change when she was losing weight and visited the doctor and they tested her memory. I know that one of the first signs that she was changing was when she was forgetting to eat. Maybe she has leftover anxiety tied to food from this? I’m not sure.

I do know that she almost always says that she is not hungry and pretty much without fail tells you to not make her food. She will accept food if you give it to her, but it’s with varying levels of resistance. In the morning she is pretty happy to receive her cereal. I’ve only had one lunch with her so far since the past days Elsa was here, then her homecare helper, Judy, was around during lunch. Today at noon I asked her if she thought it was about lunch time and she said “Yeah, I guess so” and we all had lunch. It wasn’t a problem. It seems that dinner is the hardest to get her to eat. She’ll be going into the kitchen and munching on bread, or grabbing a pudding around dinner time so she is clearly hungry. But many times at dinner if you give her food she insists that she is full. When I gave her dinner last night she told me that I was “as bad as Sue and Elsa.” Haha. I guess so! ;)

A couple of nights I’ve actually cooked a semi-extensive dinner and I involved her in the process. She can still chop vegetables and crush peppercorns, so I have her do all those tasks. I’m going to suck at chopping veggies at the end of this stay because I don’t think I’ll have practice in 5 months! She does it well enough for what I care about and she’s just happy to help. I suspect that she is more open to eating the food if she had a hand in making it. Again, whether the negative reaction is simply a reaction to being taken care of or an acknowledgement of her memory loss, I’m not sure.

Otherwise, today we went to the food store together and she pushed the cart around as I grabbed stuff from my list. I forgot the handicap parking pass so we had to park a little bit away but she laughed it off with me. She told me about 10 times that she didn’t know where anything was in the store because she’s only been there 3 times since it opened. And that’s fine if that is what she thinks. I think she really enjoyed the trip out. Sol was off looking for jobs so I think she felt like she was doing me a favor by coming with me, which she was since I don’t mind the company. And honestly, if the task takes longer then my day seems fuller.

We also spent a long time washing the kitchen sink today. I think that she likes having us as company for, if anything, the accumulation of more dishes to wash. :)

Also, when I got here she was talking about how she liked the show Keeping Up With Appearances, a British comedy that airs on PBS once in a while. She mentioned several times that my Aunt Elena would call her to remind her when it was on; and I remember watching it with her and my mom when I used to live here. So I just went on Amazon and ordered the set of DVDs and it came last night. So we’ve watched 2 episodes and I think it’s overall positive. I mean, it’s funny and even Grammy thinks it’s funny, so we’re all good there.