Yesterday Liam had a half day of school, so I figured we'd go up to Mom's so I could work on a birthday cake I needed to have for a party for today. This way I had someone to watch the boys and help distract them from "helping" for the 2 1/2-3 hours it would probably take to decorate the cake. (Not to mention it gave me the bonus of having Mom have the cake baked for me and ready for when I got up there, I can use her stuff and not have to find all of mine, and Dad does the dishes...)
Anyways, so we went up and I started working. When Mom came home we went in to have dinner with Papa (she brought stuff from Pizza Hut home). I'm always nervous about going in to see Papa since Mom's been telling me that he's forgetting a lot recently. Dad said that my Uncle Tom (Technically he's my great-uncle since he's Grandma's brother) came over (he lives across the street) to get some wood and visited with Papa for a bit. Dad told me that Uncle Tom told him that Papa had forgotten someone when Uncle Tom talked to him. Now we don't know if maybe Papa just didn't hear Uncle Tom (Papa hates wearing his hearing aid) or if he actually forgot (which he has done about other things), but in all honesty, the man is 91 1/2 years old. He forgets.
So, of course, I was a bit nervous about going in and wondering if he'd remember who I was and remember Liam and Ethan. We went in and, as usual, the boys were little tornadoes. Running everywhere. We got them corralled to the table to eat and NOT to the back room that has the toys (and the exercise bike). During all of this, Papa was sitting in the living room watching us. Mom joked to him that he was hiding from the chaos. I walked into the living room and told him I was going to hide in there with him. He laughed at me, but didn't say much. Mom got the boys settled at the table, so I told Papa it was time to go out and eat. He followed me out and sat down in his spot and the rest of us wiggled around the table. It reminded me of all of the times that Mom, Dad, and I went in to have dinner with Grandma and Papa, which was usually just about every evening from the time I was born until I went to college (then I just came back and had dinner on the weekends with them).
Once we get all settled, Papa looks at me and says "You only have two kids? I thought you had more?"
...
My heart fell. He forgot. We were up not that long ago, but in those 2 weeks or so he had forgotten. I wanted to cry.
Then a half second later, he grinned at me and laughed. Then it dawned on me. He was joking!!! He was joking about the two of them making so much noise! OMG I could have cried! It's the type of joke that is completely Papa. Totally him!
He talked during dinner and ate really well. After dinner the boys went to the bathroom and he KNEW that they were going to try to sneak into the back room to play with the exercise bike. I went back to check on them in the bathroom (his toilet is screwed up) and when he saw Ethan go towards the back room, he yelled "GET AWAY FROM MY BIKE! I have it set up the way I want it!" It was like he was yelling at me and my cousins from when I was the boys' ages ;) We always snuck back there to ride the bike and then got in trouble ;)
I talked to Mom on the way back out to the house about his joke and she said she had the same fear. We've been dealing recently with my Aunt Dorothy (again, she's a great-aunt -- Grandma's sister) who has Alzheimer's. I guess she asked Mom not too long ago if I had Ethan yet. She didn't remember that he was born. She's also asked if I have any kids yet and other similar things and has called once and then called back 30 mins later thinking she hadn't talked to Mom in weeks. I did have a really nice conversation with her a few weeks ago and she seemed to be really aware and knew what was going on, but as anyone who has dealt with this knows, some days are good and some days are bad.
I think the "lesson" that I've learned from this little mini-scare with Papa is that the things he's forgetting are the things he doesn't encounter a lot. He sees Mom and Dad a lot, he sees the neighbors out (tho not as much now that it's winter and he's inside a lot more), he sees me and the boys at least a few times a month, etc. He's forgetting things he doesn't deal with on a regular basis, like grocery shopping (Mom does it for him, tho in good weather he goes with her), days or special dates, people he doesn't see often, etc. Mom says he does, for example, seem to remember people once she tells him who the person they passed in the grocery store that he didn't recognize. So it's not like he has completely forgotten. He just needs the "Hi, I'm Joe!" reminder and then he's back on the same page.
One thing that always makes me smile (well, besides Papa's face lighting up when the kids come in and run around him or sit down and talk to him about something) is that when we drive out the driveway, past Papa's house at the end of our visits at Moms, the boys always wave at Papa's house and say "Goodnight Papa! I love you!" :)
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