Sunday, February 14, 2016

Busy Week

Our Chinese exchange students left this week.   They were here 11 days.  They were very nice boys, and we only had two problems with them.  First of all, the dog would not stop barking at them!  I finally told them that the dog is like a mirror.  Whatever they project to him, he will give back to them.  So then they started to relax and talk to him.  He stopped barking.  But it took 4 days for that to happen!  One morning, one of the boys went to the bathroom and the dog started barking at him.  (And remember my dog is part mastiff, and weighs 125 pounds!). When the boy left the bathroom he RAN up stairs!  The dog chased him, barking all the way!  We had to start locking the dog in the bedroom when they were home.  I was sure relieved when they all worked things out.

The second problem was that there were two chinese girls staying with a family nearby.  Sometimes they would come to our house, and then the four of them would get in an argument and the girls would pout, and the boys looked shell shocked.  I'm sure glad I had two boys instead of 2 moody girls!

One thing we did while they were here was go bowling.  They had never bowled before, but ended up doing really well.  My husband also took them shooting one day.  The truck got stuck in the snow and they had to work for about an hour to get it out.  But all in all they enjoyed the day.  The night before they left, we had hot pot here at our house and invited the girls to come too.  It was the end of Chinese new year, and these kids are only about 13.  It's hard for them to be away during the most important holiday of the year!  So I think it helped to have hot pot here.  The boys decided to make dumplings for us.  They were SO SLOW!  I finally told them I would help and I grabbed the cleaver and quickly chopped up the vegetables.  They thought I was amazing.  Lol

My mother finished up her physical therapy and occupational therapy this week.  We still have speech therapy coming, and a nurse that comes to help her with showers.  I will miss the nurse most of all when they stop coming.  But I'm glad that my Mom is physically doing better.  Her brain is still a little scrambled though.  This morning she couldn't find her brush.  I told her it was in the drawer.  When she came back out, her hair did look brushed.  She said she had used a little one.  It wasn't until later that I realized it was probably her tooth brush.....  She is obsessed with the thought of going home.  She wants more than anything else to go to her own house.  I keep telling her that she can't live there alone, that she needs someone to take care of her.  But her dementia makes it hard for her to understand reason.  Any time someone comes to our house, she tries to figure out a way to get them to take her home.  I don't know if this will ever change.  And I know that even if she had someone to live with her in her home, she probably still wouldn't be happy.  I told her that she needs to learn to be happy in the now, and appreciate the life she has instead of always wanting something else.  But the dementia rules in these discussions.  Her life can never be what it was.  I guess it does bother me to hear her talk like that because I involve her in what I'm doing, and I take her places.  She doesn't seem to recognize all I do to try to help her keep busy and be happy.  And when I talk to her about it, she just says she wants to die.  I keep thinking about one of the ten commandments that says that we should honor our father and our mother that our days may be long upon the earth.  I'm not sure that living long is always something to look forward to.

We are really enjoying volunteering at the MTC.  It's amazing how quickly these missionaries learn.  We only see them a few times before they graduate to teaching people through SKYPE.  But it's amazing in those few weeks how quickly they improve.

I wrote before about my chinese friend that I was reunited with.  We had her and her family over for hot pot last night.  It was great to visit with them and reminisce about old times.  We definitely need to get together again soon.

3 comments:

Looney said...

I had one student over Christmas break. He was an iPhone zombie and it took a lot of work to persuade him to interact with real humans. We learned later that his mom had taken his iPhone away, but he had gotten another one from a friend.

Delirious said...

Ha, now we know why she took away his other phone! :)

Lindsay Logic said...

I've been a horrible blogger, but I enjoy reading your updates!

Sounds like you keep busy and are having fun! I loved the story of you meeting up with your old friend. A tender mercy for certain!
Thank for taking care of Grandma. I know it's not easy, but I think it's the best place for her right now.