Patience

Yesterday I was talking to the woman who works at the front office of my work.  I have a one year old and she has an elderly father with dementia and their care is surprisingly similar.  You cannot just leave them home and go to work.  If you cannot stay home with them you must hire someone to take care of them for you (and just hope and pray they do it even half as well and half as lovingly as you do it).  You must do everything for them, bathe them, make sure they eat, dress them, etc.  And then there are the questions… O.M.G. the questions.  You never realize how little you know about the world until you have a little one.  Sometimes you look it up, sometimes you make it up, and sometimes the answer is just “I don’t know”.  And sometimes it’s the same question over, and over, and over again.  We are only human and it’s annoying.  (If you say it’s not you are a far more patient person than I).  But losing your cool is a terribly debilitating thing to do to someone.

Imagine you are a little kid and you ask “what’s that?” and mommy says a word you’ve never heard before.  You can’t say it yourself because you aren’t sure what she said so you ask “what’s that?” again and this time you watch her lips move but she isn’t looking at you.  “What’s that” and this time you saw the way her lips curled but you aren’t sure how to pronounce it.  “What’s That?”.  And it goes on, and on, until you finally grasp it.  It’s a Sparrow!  Is that bird a sparrow?  No, a finch, huh, ok.  How about this one?  No, a cardinal, weird.   And it goes on and on like that.  Mom is awesome because she always answers my questions.  She’s so smart!!

On the other side of this is the poor mommy – “What’s that?” “A sparrow” “What’s that?” “A sparrow” “What’s that?” “A sparrow” “What’s that?” “A sparrow” “What’s that?” “A sparrow” and then on the way home “Sparrow?” as she points to ever bird we see.  Annoying right?  Yep.  But imagine another scenario.

“What’s that?” “A sparrow”  “What’s that?”  “I already told you, it’s a sparrow”. “What’s that?”  “It’s an effing sparrow”  “What’s that?”  “A SPARROW!!” “What’s that?”  “Go away”.  Wow, mommy is mad at me and I don’t know what I did.  I just wanted to know what that was.  I guess it’s not ok to ask questions.  And mommy is really scary sometimes.

Imagine a world where if you didn’t know something  you went on not knowing it because you were too ashamed to ask.  Now in a world with google you can easily and privately find your answer (usually) but 2 year olds don’t have google.  They have mommy.  And do you want your kid to think you are smart and nice?  Do you want your kids to ask when they don’t  understand something?  Do you want your kids to come to you when they have a question/problem?  Then answer their questions.   Every time.

Fast forward to the 80 year old man with Alzheimer’s.  Computers didn’t come around until the end of his working years so sure he may use it for e-mails and the like but it’s not really part of his daily routine.  As his mind slips away, names forgotten, places forgotten, use of that awesome google function fades away too.  Imagine knowing that you once knew the answer to something but now you can’t for the life of you figure it out.  How scary when you know you are literally losing your mind?   And now all you can remember is your daughters face, her kind sweet face and ask her, for the umpteenth time, where is your room again?  Imagine if she yelled at you.  Imagine how scary if the only familiar thing in your world was mad at you.  So you stop asking.

This is the video I was talking about with my co-worker that even describing it to her made me cry.  It's short but it's powerful. 

What people don’t realize (until they themselves are in the situation) is that care givers of young children and elderly relatives need help.  And they need a break.  They need alone time.  They need girls/guys nights out.  They need a hug and someone to tell them they are doing a good job.  Because they are not in it for the pay. 

I’m not saying patience is easy but I am saying patience is essential.

Here we go again

I have started and restarted this blog with several different intentions and today is no different. Except that today I vow to post what I want, when I want, and about what I want. First I wanted to be inspirational. Then I wanted to follow the same structure as another one of my favorite bloggers. And whenever I set myself up with "rules" is when I set myself up to fail. I'm not a structured person. I get to work on or around 11 every day. Sometimes 9, sometimes 11:30. I'm am so very thankful that my work is ok with this. I guess if you show up, do a good job, and get your work done, they really couldn't care less when I do it. So telling myself that I'll post "every day" was a goal very quickly unrealized. Trying to keep things sequential was another goal that I was unable to obtain. And does it really matter in anyone's world if what I post is about something from years ago and then something I post tomorrow is about current events? Nope. So here I go again, starting over. Isn't that the beauty of life, unending chances to start over?

 To anyone who does read this and happens to recognize my true identity, please don't connect the dots for others. Please don't post my real name here or share these posts with people in my real life. I plan to post some things here because they are on my mind. Or because I think they would help others with something they are going thru. And while I may not use real names, if you are close to me, people will be easy to recognize and the last thing I ever want to do is hurt or embarrass anyone in my life. So I ask that you honor my request of anonymity.

 As for who is writing this blog, I started writing a long "life history" and realized that's what these blog posts will be, little glimpses of my life. So instead I'll just give you the basics. Today I am a woman in her mid thirties, a mom, a wife, and a resident of the state of Pennsylvania. The rest will unfold in my posts but I'm always open to questions.