It's interesting the way behaviours I thought had been and gone come back again. It has been months since Ma haunted the front door, trying the handle every 30 seconds or so, but now she is back to doing it again. I can ignore it for so long (about an hour or so) and then suddenly it's just so irritating and I go through the whole 'It's locked Ma, you can't open it' and she says 'Yes that's right.' and then tries to open it. This is repeated a number of times until the futility of it bludgeons me over the head and I return to ignoring mode. Albeit with slightly flatter teeth.
A current obsession is removing food from her plate and putting it somewhere else. Generally on the soft furnishings, but it can be anywhere. Vigilance is paramount here because had I missed the egg sandwich she put in a coat pocket in the cupboard we could have been searching for the source of the smell for weeks. I'm baffled as to how she decided that was where to put it but she clearly wanted to go there and in fact it was only her dogged determination that made me realise she was up to something.
As she has been re-referred back to the dietician I am battling with the whole feeding thing again and this is linked to the above. As I mentioned a while back, when she is at the day centre she uses cutlery and feeds herself so I have stepped back from assisting her and encourage her to do the same at home. The downside to this is that she eats far less than she would if I was helping and tends to move food around the house/feed the dog etc if I'm not closely monitoring her and that has the inevitable result of some weight loss. Everything I feed her is calorie-loaded as much as possible - Jersey milk on cereal plus cream, I put butter, cream and/or cheese in as many things as I can and keep up a steady drip feed of soft sweet things such as pieces of banana, breakfast bars, cakes etc. The only time she flatly refuses is when I offer food which I've added Complan to. And frankly I can't say I blame her, it's foul. At the same time if she refuses to eat there's not a great deal I can do about it. Yesterday was a refusal day, hopefully today will be a good one.
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Months ago I put my name down for a day retreat at Mirfield with the Vicar and others from church next Saturday but I am going to have to cancel. I hadn't realised that Peter would be in Spain and there isn't really anyone else I would ask to be with Ma all day, it's too much for anyone else to deal with. Hugh has offered to take me on a weekday when she's at the day centre which would be great, so we'll see how things go.
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Some nice blips recently. I think we might have a jolly jaunt in the car today (Ma in the back with the child locks on) and go looking for something nice to photograph. It'll make a change from things in the garden :)
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