MONDAY, AUGUST 30, 2010

Oh, I didn't realize it's been an entire week since I've written! Everything here has been pretty calm with Tom. With Cynthia coming again a couple times a week, he's starting to confuse us. He asks questions like, "I know I've asked you this before, but how many kids do you have?" To this I always just stare wide-eyed at Carol until she starts laughing and tells him I'm not even thinking about having kids. He also asks me how "the ol' boy" is. I ask who this is and he asks, "aren't you married?" This question I can answer by myself, although not with much different of an answer. Then he asks me (while drinking those little treasured 7.5 fl oz Cokes I buy him) "So, how many people like us do you see?" "Grandpa," I say,"I'm your Granddaughter. Jeanne's daughter." He starts defensive back-treading, "Yea, I know that," he snaps. As far as the new depression medication he's on, I don't know yet. On Saturday I made lunch for him (Carol has been refusing meals lately, but not neglecting the candy/cookie drawer) he calmly said, "How long will you be staying with us?" I say my usual answer, "until you kick me out." "No," he says without a smile, "how long? A week?" I say that no, I was going to be here for another few months to a year. "That's not going to work out," he says. This strikes me as odd. Right as I'm starting to get a grip on him lashing out at me for challenging his control on the house, he decides to have the conversation out of the blue as he eats the tomato sandwich I made for him. Like we are discussing what to have for dinner, or where Tobey might have been hiding. "Why do you want me to leave? I do my share around the house. I buy groceries. Mostly all I do is read and watch TV in my room." "I don't really know. Who said you could stay?" These questions hover in the air as I try to grasp the logical answer to them, "You did." "Well, I must not have realized that was how long you were going to stay." I look perplexed as he adds more salt and pepper to the world's spiciest sandwich on white bread. "Where should I go if I must be out in a week," I want to know. "You're leaving this week?" He asks alarmed all of a sudden "You just said you wanted me to leave in a week and that I can't stay here for months." "No, you can stay as long as you want. That's not a problem. Who said you couldn't stay?" And suddenly I feel like the crazy one.
I know he still gets mad at Carol though. Two nights ago I was in the laundry room/hallway and I could hear him yelling at her. She went to the bathroom to cry when she saw me. I talked to her for about a half hour, while standing there with my folded clothes in my arm. I'm not sure where what I said to here came from, but it sounded more like what my mom has been coaching me. "You can't take it personally. If you need to get away for a while, you can do that." We talked about her going to visit Bill, "We can go, just us girls and go see William. Cynthia can make sure Grandpa is alright for a few days." Knowing that his was an option seemed to be reassuring. She's been having these panic attacks at night, like tonight with thinking she got the wrong year for the tabs and if she didn't figure it out at 9pm that Tom would find out and get mad at her. She's also hasn't been very good with her medicine. She'll do her patch alright, then wont take her pill, but still write that she did on the calendar. When I finally switch from say things like, I think you should take the pills (which usually works) to more recently just saying, "I am 100% sure you did not take your medicine, and I know you'll be happier if you take them now." The other day she practically stomped off to her room and came back in and said, "Do you see them, they're on my tongue." I almost laughed, she looked about 5 years old with her tongue stuck out as far as possible. "I'm not a doctor. I'm a concerned Granddaughter who loves you too much to let you be miserable tomorrow." She doesn't take long to forgive me for having to take the 23-year-old-knows-best approach.
That's about it. Most days I go to work before anyone wakes up. When I get home I make dinner and they claim to have already had a big dinner, but throughout the night they pick at what I made. I don't get into argument's with Grandpa. When he eats out of the ice cream container, I mark a big "T" on it, and move on. When he acts rude or ungrateful, I treat him the way I did with rude guests waitressing, over-the-top-kindness (very passive aggressive, I know). And, just about every night I play therapist by talking Carol through whatever problem she's worried about. i.e. "I just knew I bough coffee the other day but it's gone", or the old stand by, "I didn't take his license but he thinks I did!" Then the day ends and we start over.