Mimi

Almost four weeks ago Rob's Mom came to live at our house for a while. Earlene is 87 years old and has been remarkably healthy until she took a fall in October and broke her pelvis in two places. Since then, she has seemed frail. It also seems her memory has slipped quite a bit. At first we thought perhaps it was the pain medication she was on, but she only took the Percocet for a few days because it was causing too much trouble with her stomach and her mind.

After a couple of weeks of home health care, physical therapy, and Rob's sister, Julie, trying to spend as much time as possible at her Mom's house to help her out, we realized that she shouldn't be left alone any more so the decision was made to have her come live here while Julie and David finish the mother-in-law apartment in their house.

We all call Rob's Mom Mimi. When Kevin, her oldest grandchild, was a baby she tried to get him to call her 'Grammy', but it came out as 'Mimi' and it stuck. Now everyone calls her Mimi. Mimi is a wonderful grandmother. She has loved every one of her grands and they all think she is grand. She was a get-down-on-the-floor-to-play kind of grandmother. Her seven grandchildren all have such fond memories of playing 'city bus' on her bed with a round pillow as the steering wheel, Author's Cards, The Hair Net Lady, I Spy, Spoons and many other games.

It has taken a little getting used to having another person living at our house, but Mimi makes it as easy on us as she can. She is very unassuming and quiet. Rob brought her TV to our house and hooked it for her, so she spends a few hours of each day in room watching it. She goes to bed around 9:00 or 9:30 each evening and wakes up around 10:00 a.m. We have to remind her to eat. We believe the reason she has gotten so thin is because she just forgets to eat. She is diabetic, so this is a concern beyond weight. We keep popcorn, crackers, fruit, vegetables, sugarless cookies and hot chocolate mixes out on the counter and encourage her to snack in between meals.

We are happy to announce that Mimi's gained four pounds since she's been staying here. Perhaps having the Thanksgiving feast since she's been here helped. She loved the sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, rolls with lots of butter and stuffing covered in gravy and had quite a number of plates full of those things on Thanksgiving and for a few days following.

I took Mimi to Weber High School's production of White Christmas on December 3rd. She loved it! She kept commenting throughout the production how amazed she was at the talent of these young people and that it didn't seem possible that this was a high school musical. She tapped her toes and clapped her hands and truly seemed to enjoy the evening. Unfortunately, by the next day she didn't remember attending the program. She has become really forgetful. She knows she doesn't remember things and it really bugs her.

I guess there are some good things about Mimi's forgetfulness. She laughs at the same jokes over and over, the not-so-good things about her lack of memory is that she keeps asking the same questions over and over. She asks every day when we are taking her home. Hopefully we can make her comfortable and happy here and eventually she'll forget to ask that question. We love Mimi! We feel very privileged to have her staying here now and hope she'll remember it as a good time.