I’m upset with myself because I got upset with my mother. An employee of her retirement community asked her to make cookies for the bake sale on March 9th. I noticed the reminder note on her pantry door: March 9th, Bake Sale, Make Cookies. When I stopped in on Saturday she was mixing up her cookie dough. “Mom,” I said. “The bake sale isn’t until next week. Why are you making cookies now?”
“I’m just mixing the dough,” she said. “I’m going to put it in the refrigerator.”
When I called her yesterday she was taking the last of the cookies out of the oven. “Mom, the bake sale isn’t until the 9th. That’s next week. Why are you baking the cookies now?”
“I just want to get them done,” she said. “I’ll put them in the freezer.”
When I called this morning she was aggravated that she couldn’t find anyone who knew where she was supposed to take the cookies for the sale. “Mom, the bake sale is on the 9th. That’s next week.”
“Isn’t today the 9th?”
“No, Mom. I told you yesterday and on Saturday that the bake sale was next week. Look at your newspaper. It’s the second. Look at your calendar.”
“Well, I’ll just put them back in the freezer.”
I know that I didn’t keep the irritation out of my voice, and that bothers me. It really doesn’t make any difference if she makes cookies every day. In fact she makes them at least once a week. She gives them away to the activities coordinators and drivers. I think that they re-gift them to patients in health care. I wonder how many people in health care (or skilled nursing) can actually eat them.
Besides making cookies and knitting slippers, she really doesn’t have anything to do. Since August she has knitted 80 pairs of slippers. A relative asked if she could help make slippers as gifts for patients in a dialysis unit. That request was a blessing. It gave her existence a purpose. Today she is working on the eightieth pair.
The slippers have been knitted. The cookies have been baked. She isn’t capable of coming up with a new activity on her own. I need to find her something else to do.
Good luck with that!
ReplyDeleteYour mom is so sweet, but I understand your irritation. Although my mom is not confused about days and stuff like that, she forgets that I have no tolerance for listening to her prattle on about what gifts she needs to buy for the grandkids. Now that they're older, it's not as bad. But, I simply don't care--and never have--about what so-and-so wants and how she found it for $1.00 less at this store versus that store. UHHHGGGG!!
I know payback will be hell when I'm talking just like her to Dan someday.