Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Hints from Eileen

As we all get older, so do our parents. My Mom just turned 89 last week, and life sure has been interesting for my Sister Jeannie and me. I keep hearing a voice in my brain telling me to not get upset, but I must admit, there are days I long for a primal scream. All in all, I guess you can say Mom is intertaining. My only prayer these days is please God, give me and every Designated Daughter/Son strength. Anyway, enjoy these Hints from Eileen on how to test the limits of how much your girls really love you:

1. If you can't find the garbage, throw kleenex on the floor.
2. If you have dirty clothes on, deny that they are dirty, and wear anyway.
3. If you are hungry, fill up with popcorn just before dinner.

4. If someone left buns or desserts on their table in the dining room, put them in your basket on your walker and bring them home.
5. If it's ice cream, don't worry. It will spill into your walker basket, coat your money in your wallet and adhere all the kleenex and superfulous stuff in the same basket into one gruesome lump that your daughters will clean up on Mondays.
6. If the two paces to your closet are too far to walk to hang your clothes up, just walk 8 paces to the chair in the corner and throw them there. Your daughters will pick them up on Mondays.
7. If someone wants to get serious and try to talk logic, just laugh and throw them off.
8. If you have to be 89 and living the life of the "Queen of quite a lot", who thinks life is just a chair of bowlies, remind your girls that it's better than being 89 and a shrew.
9. If you think you might be hungry later, take food off other people's tables as you leave the dining room. Afterall, they aren't going to eat it anyway.
10. If your daughters ask you to not visit the ice cream palor 7 times a day, just deny the number 7. Then tell them that you "only have a tiny little cone, with just a little ice cream in it." They are sure to believe you.
11. If that doesn't work, start to fake cry and tell them they are being critical of you. That one actually works almost 100% of the time.
12. If you want a new winter wardrobe, increase your visits to the ice cream palor. Guaranteed to jump you 3 dress sizes. Presto, new wardrobe.
13. If you can't get out of your bras, cut the straps off with the scissors.
14. If you have chocolate candy on your fingers, wipe on nearest piece of furniture.
15. If you have finished with your toothpick, throw it anywhere you want.

16. If you don't want to take a shower, argue that you have bathed every morning at the sink. Seriously, who needs more than one bath a week?


and lastly, my favorite hint from Eileen,

17. Take your shoes off in the middle of the front room so you will be sure to trip over them. This will send you to the Emergency Room (for the third time) where you will get all the attention you want.

1 comment:

Judith said...

Most of us at some point will become a caregiver. My only advice is to see the humor in things, count to 10 before responding, and agree with everything your parent says, even if your Grandfather did not die of lead poisoning. It is a difficult journey, but love will get you through it.