Michele's First Post

Today marks the two-week anniversary of Dee Dee moving in with us. It sure has been an interesting two weeks, filled with laughter at Dee Dee's ever present sense of humor, to dismay at the things I am realizing she cannot do, to joy at just being with her and seeing her happy.

She loves to be helpful and not to be a burden. All of you who know Dee Dee know how true this is. We are striving to find ways to let her be helpful in ways that are appropriate to her abilities. So far, I let her fold all my laundry. She LOVES to do this, and it occupies hours of her time. I alternately keep her company, and keep the laundry advancing, and it has been so fun just hanging out with her. When we chat over everyday things, that is when she seems the most like her old self that I remember growing up with.

When I am handwashing dishes, she likes to dry them for me. I bring them to where she is seated at the kitchen table. Today, I realized afterward, she opened up paper napkins and set them underneath each dried dish on the table, to keep the table dry just in case the dishes were not completely dry. When I took the dishes and put them away, she spent five minutes refolding the napkins and carefully aligning them with the rest of the napkins in the holder.

Another thing she tries to do in order to not cause me extra work is to carefully wipe off her plate at the end of a meal with a napkin, declaring it perfectly clean, and telling me it should go back in the cabinet; it doesn't even need to be washed. I thank her and take the plate from her, but she does not notice that it ends up in the sink rather than the cabinet as she had requested. Hopefully she never gets around to putting her dishes away herself! (Today she put her iced tea mug in the freezer by mistake and the bottom broke off of the mug when the tea froze - the girls were fascinated and delighted with this and Louisa spent twenty minutes licking the iced tea popsicle.)

Dee Dee likes to keep me company whenever I am in the kitchen, but apart from that, unless otherwise invited, she spends all of her time dozing in her recliner or on the family room sofa (or using the bathroom). I am trying to find ways to engage and include her and stimulate her throughout the day. Today I got out a deck of cards and retaught her Solitaire. I needed to remind her of the rules, but much of it came back to her and she seemed to really enjoy it. At the end of the game, reorganizing cards from descending stacks of alternating color into ascending stacks by suit was a skill that was just about perfectly suited to her current level. She concentrated carefully and managed to figure out (for the most part) what she should be doing. She won the game with only a little bit of inadvertent cheating and seemed quite pleased.

So it has been interesting learning how to live together with Dee Dee. In many ways things have not changed at all. She has adapted beautifully into our daily routine, or lack of one, and is just so happy to be here. She is so sweet and we are happy to be able to help make her happy.