My heart is about to burst. I have My Mom watching Momma Mia while I get a little work done on the computer and I looked up to see her full blown dancing, well, from the waist up anyway. The arms were swaying skyward, punching and swinging to the beat and her face was just beaming as the TV screen transformed her into the Dancing Queen. She caught me watching.
"What are you smiling at?" she asked.
"I'm thinking this movie looks pretty fun," I said quickly sending my arms into action so she'd continue dancing without feeling like I was making fun of her. Instead, she took a poke at me.
"See, this is good for you," she said as she watched my chair dancing maneuvers with interest. "You usually stay back."
She's right. I grew up super introverted. She doesn't remember having children, but she remembers my core personality. The shyness has been pretty much gone since high school, but I still slip back on occasion. It made me realize caring for her has really helped me over the final hurdles of living in fear -- we pull some pretty crazy antics. Come to think of it, all the silly things I wish I would have done when I was young. My Mom not only gave me life, but at 88 with full blown Alzheimer's, she's continuing to teach me how to live it to the fullest.
We're on "Super Duper Lights are Gonna Find Me" now. I'm not even sure that I have the words right, but regardless, we're singing them at the top of our lungs. We've rewound the scene several times to try and get the lyrics right. Such fun!
Monday we performed "I could have danced all night" from My Fair Lady over and over again.
(Okay, if we had a Peeping Tom, he'd tell you we play that one often.)
I have several stories to post -- I'm sooooo behind!
In the meantime, two funny highlights from this week:
Tuesday I told My Mom that it was the first day back to school for the kids. I suggested we call her granddaughters to ask how the day went but she was deep in thought, almost as if she was troubled by the news of school starting.
"The weather's getting colder, summer's coming to an end, it's time to go back to school," I told her.
Her brain whirled, her eyes shifted around the room calculating. What exactly she was thinking about, I had no idea, until she spoke. "I think I'm sick," she said feebly.
Seriously?
"So you're not ready to go back to school?" I couldn't believe that's what she thought, but I went with it anyway.
She clutched her throat and managed to add a little hoarse quality to her words. "My throat, my chest," she complained.
I assured her she didn't have to go to school which of course led to a miraculous healing.
The next morning we had a distinct fall chill in the air. I turned the heater on to blast a little warm air in her room before waking her up, just as she did for us every fall when we were young. She had a particularly good morning, so after putting her outfit on, I left her to put on her shoes and socks.
It's a 50-50 gamble on whether she'll carry out that type of task. If she starts right away, she'll usually stay focused and get the job done. If something in the room catches her eye, she's off target and anything can happen when she tries to remember what she's supposed to do. I've come back in moments later to find her putting on several layers of clothes or collecting pencils from her night stand. That morning she was quite with it and upset that she had misplaced her socks. I only stepped out for 2 minutes, but when I came back she was agitated and rather animated about the loss.
"I can't find my socks!" she complained with extreme exasperation. "I just had them!"
Sure enough, her feet were bare. I checked the floor to see if the socks had fallen from her lap.
"Oh come on!" she said pounding her fists into the air. I glanced up in time to see her animated gestures.
"Are you ready for a good one?" I asked her. "I found them."
I pointed to her hands. It was a chilly morning all right -- she was wearing them as mittens!
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