From July 11

We’re gearing up for a big week around here…. Tomorrow we are expecting a visit from one of Grandmother’s brothers, sister-in-law, and nephew. Then, on Wednesday, we are taking Grandmother to KY, Thursday the rest of the family will fly to Charleston for my niece’s wedding. Cutie, our 9 month old shi-poo will also be having her first sleep away from home experience with some neighbors. Life should be grand!
Grandmother DOES NOT DO WELL with things being different. She is already stressed out about going to Mayfield. Last time I took her for the weekend she thought I had went off and left her and she swore she’d never go back once I picked her up. Well, that didn’t work out for her and we’re headed back next week.
Three weeks ago, her doctor told her for my sake and hers she had to start taking some of those “Satan’s poison nerve pills”. The first week she was on them I thought we were both going to go bat shit crazy. I am not kidding you, it was BAD news. But, knowing what little I know about mood altering medication, I knew we had to give it at least 2 weeks. I will say, now things have mellowed out and we have less of the stressed out about being stressed out business.
My goal the last few weeks has been to make her do stuff for herself. She has gotten worse than my kids about expecting to be waited on and having someone else do things for her. It isn’t that I mind doing things, I just feel like she will further digress if she doesn’t force her self to get out of the chair and remember how to do things. When she asks me to do something for her, or to show her how to do it, I have been making her tell me how to do it; or just flat out figure out how to do it on her own.
The same struggle persists in deciding between what she legitimately doesn’t know or understand and what she is faking. She is bad about manipulating situations to get her way. For example, last weekend, she wanted to go with us to some friend’s farm to celebrate the 4th. I explained multiple times that we would be gone for several hours and that we would be eating a later dinner, and would be outside. We weren’t there an hour before she was talking about coming home. After we’d been there about 3 hours, she started demanding we go home. I told her that wasn’t going to happen. She knew the story before we left, and she was just going to suck it up. That, is when she informed me she was going to poop her pants and then I would have to take her home because she didn’t have clean ones. I may have had my head spin around on my shoulders and green stuff come flying out. Honey, you need to remember I just finished parenting toddlers, and still have 2 spoiled children. Don’t even try to pull the manipulation factor on me! I just grabbed her by the shoulders, made her look me square in the face and said, “Grandmother, that would be a very poor choice. We promised our kids they could come to the farm, swim, and watch the fireworks. And, I will not allow you to ruin that for them. If you choose to poop in your pants, you are going to have to explain to that very handsome older gentleman why the seat of your white pants are brown. Now, would you like to go inside to potty, or would you like to continue with pooping in your pants like a child?” She decided she just go into the house and use the bathroom properly…..
Not long after our potty incident, we had a little child drama. Sam was sitting on the stone steps of the old farm house. I had gone inside to fix grandmother and the kids a plate. Lexi Kate comes tearing through the house screaming “Momma, momma, Sam fell and he’s hurt bad!” What in the world, I just left him sitting there 3 minutes ago?!?! Unfortunately, one of the older ladies lost her footing, and kicked Sam off the stair. He was sitting on the top step, and went tumbling off whacking his head on the way down. JB picked him up and brought him inside to me. Once I finally got him calmed down, he was more concerned about his doritos and sprite spilling than he was about falling. When he said his knee hurt more than his head, I knew we were good.
So, this week, we’ll be packing for our road trips and answering the same question five million thousand times….