I'm caught up on some things. I'm weeks behind on other things. And I'm months behind on many things. One of the things I've tried to do over the past 3 months of Caregiving in order to stay on top of my own responsibilities is to take my Mom to work with me whenever I can. It usually has to be an outdoor project on a day with good weather. In total, I think we were able to pull off 5 or 6 of those days January through March. Just getting her ready & persuading her to go over to my house can be an arduous task in itself... then scrambling to put together the materials & tools for the work projects once we are there all while trying to keep her from wandering around the yard and falling can turn a simple objective into a long complicated process. It sometimes takes me 2 hours of getting everything in place while containing my Mom before we can even start the work project. It's a lot of work to be able to start working. Once everything is ready to go then Birddog loves to work and be purposeful. She loves to help! She's an amazing woman and doesn't like to sit around while everyone else is working. She wants to contribute to the task at hand. With her age, her Alzheimers, and her high risk of falling I'm finding that small repetitive cleaning tasks while sitting seem to be the best. She fixates on it and meticulously cleans in a repetitive manner until she's done. For example, I've asked her to clean an extension cord, a hose, a coaxial cable, and a string of lights. She excelled at it. In fact, I've been so impressed with how great of a job she has done! On the other hand, when I gave her 24 chairs to cut the tags off of, she had a hard time remembering what she was supposed to cut and how much to cut. So that task became a bit labor intensive requiring a lot of oversight. Not to mention that she was breaking the law by removing the tags hahaha! It's all trial and error... living and learning... experimenting and adjusting. None of it is easy. All of it is hard. We are all exhausted. But we are doing the best that we can as we trudge forward... and spending quality time together along the way. Thank you Birddog for all your help!
