Weekend Wrap: When Is the Full Moon?

Tick, tick, tick....the Christmas countdown is going fast! Only 15 more days to go. (I will not panic. I will not panic. I will not panic....) So, it makes perfect sense that I'm sitting here writing a blog post when I have so much to do!

I worked this past weekend and it would have been reeeeeeally easy to wallow in feeling sorry for myself since I had to miss out on little Colton's birthday party. I had asked about leaving 2 hours early just so I could catch part of it, but with staffing always being short on the weekends and the activity department being short in general right now...it was a no go. My only option was to call off, get points against me for doing so, and then work next weekend to make it up. It sucks, but, uh, no.

Hearing how the crowd of other kids behaved enabled me to feel quite a bit better about missing the party. LOL Plus, Colton is getting his big present (we went in with his parents and his other grandparents) on his actual birthday this Thursday and they'll wait until Tim and I get home to give it to him. Shhh....it's a huge Power Wheels truck. Actually, it's a Dodge Ram diesel with dual wheels! It's ridiculous, but 2 kids can ride in it and he won't grow out of it right away. The kids decided to wait to give it to him since I couldn't be there and also because they were afraid of how the other kids would probably treat it. Hearing the stories and seeing the basement after the party, I'm thinking they made a good decision.

As for work, it was a long weekend. With us being short on activity aidesAand very short on aides trained to work in the dementia unit it was all me all day with no one for the hours after supper. It's a lot more stress when things go kaflooey and you're by yourself. And things went kaflooey both afternoons. Tell me, are we coming up on the full moon?

Anyway, the sundowners syndrome (some residents get very agitated as the sun goes down) was pretty wide-spread and powerful this weekend. Plus, we have a new resident, a female whose husband passed away less than a month ago and her dementia came on hard and fast following his death. She is still very much mobile but also very out of touch with reality. She latches on to any man that is handy and sees him as her husband.

Most of the time that is one of our other wanderers. He is less in touch with reality than she is and where she speaks clearly, he can't. She takes his hand and they wander all over the place, including in and out of the rooms of other residents. We try to ignore that normally, but can't when it poses a danger or as in this case when they are going through everyone's things and taking some of them (the other day they took everyone's dentures!). I have no idea what the gentleman might be thinking, but the woman thinks the whole place is her home and she does NOT like being told she can't go into a room or being told she needs to let go of the man so he doesn't fall and take her down, too.

One day she "just wanted me to know" that she has 8 guns at home. Yesterday we sat on opposite sides of another gentleman at church and she came out of that ranting about her husband (the man between us) being with another woman (me). Sigh. I guess I should be glad those guns are back at home. LOL

Christmas preparations continue to happen. I did some shopping on Friday and packages I've ordered online are arriving daily. Next up is wrapping and this coming Saturday Mom, Megan and I will be doing our marathon baking.

So, that's my exciting weekend. Now I'm looking forward to the week, more Christmas preparations and all the Christmas activities going on at the home. I hope the spirit of the season has found you and that you enjoy a blessed week!