And most of the time mum doesn't remember that she is my mum so by default...who the heck are these children? They are definitely not her grand children (a lot of the time she doesn't remember having had any children) so she tends to think that she is living in a boarding school and she is their teacher. It makes for interesting and slightly confusing conversations!
I knew that mum living with us would affect the kids in both positive and negative ways. For the positive, I hoped that we would be creating a good example of how to look after your own family, to experience getting older and appreciate that it is just part of life, to appreciate ill health in order to appreciate good health, to learn about looking after others and for our wider family to come together so they would benefit from a closer relationship with them. And I think for most of that they have got...
For the 'negative' stuff, I expected it to curtail our life a bit as we can lo longer just jump on our bikes and go out or nip to the park. It involves arranging care or convincing mum to come with us (both not as straightforward and forthcoming as I had first hoped). I didn't expect mum to call out so much and sleep as little and this has meant that sometimes I'm running on empty which is rubbish for the kids, and John, and mum and me! This is less of an issue now we have formal care in place but for the first 6 months of mum living with us it was REALLY tough. She can wander during the night and wakes the kids up and she can be rude and demanding which is hard but for the most part this is directed at me & John. There have been moments both of us aren't proud of when we weren't resourceful and we did get angry at mum. But I'm a believer in apologizing and explaining I guess an unexpected lesson for the kids has been witnessing us at our worst but getting ideas of how to manage stressful situations and knowing that we come through it, always. Parents are people too! I hope that they are more comfortable and confident with their own boo boos as a result of being party to ours.
Having mum with us has brought out the kids personalities which is great to see. Heather is a natural carer and will take mums hand and take her to her room or help her on with her cardigan. She also does the most amazing impression of mum sleeping! Cara is more reserved and slightly awkward and unsure and Callum is brilliant with her given mum calls him quite a lot. Like Cara, he's a quieter soul so we don't find him gabbing away to her but he does keep her in cups of tea.
It's a big thing having gran live with us - I wonder what they'll remember of this time and how it will influence what they do and how they see the world.
Dementia is a funny disease, and that's what we focus on, in a laughing with, not laughing at, way. It brings with it challenges that are very much like raising small children...without the cute effect. Biology made young things cute to bring out our caring nature to make sure youth is nurtured. Old people aren't all that cute. And kids grow up and out of their innocent and frustrating habits...mum isn't likely to - what we've got just now is as good as it's going to get.
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