My Grandma

She will be 89 in May.

She is virtually house bound.

She has falls in her own home but resists acting on the advice from the professionals on how to avoid them.

She refuses to move out of home into a care facility or retirement hostel.

She now has an INS Lifeguard buzzer to wear & pushes the button when she does fall.

She is getting more frail & losing more confidence with each fall.

She is dependant on lots of people to be able to live in her own home, to be independant.

She can't walk to her letterbox anymore.

She has finally agreed to an Aged Care Package which includes 5 hours of in home care each week by an Aged Care Worker from Anglicare.

She thinks her Aged Care Worker is lovely. (phew!)

She should be in a wheelchair when we go out.

She refuses to consider that idea.

She is lonely.

She is getting very vague.

She needs lots of reminding & repeated information.

She worries me to the point I get very stressed.

She has had a community nurse visit a few times recently to change dressings on her feet.

She suggested Grandma needs someone there 24 hours to prevent her from falling.

She is now considering respite care for 2 weeks to see if she likes it.

She heard this idea from her doctor.

She heard it from us too, but ignored it. Continually.

She is now considering going into a retirement home in the hostel section so she has access to assistance 24 hours a day.

She heard this one from her doctor too.

She also heard this from us too, but also ignored it.

She needs to go there.

She needs more company than I or the rest of the family can give her.

She needs assistance to do most things.

She needs to go into care.

She has been highly dependant on me recently & I spent 1 full day + 3 x half days in a row with her. I missed her the next day.

She has more complex needs than we can deal with.

She means a great deal to me.

She needs to go into care.

She must be very frightened.

She needs to go into care.

She understands that we will still have our Tuesdays together.

She is a beautiful old lady.

She is a stubborn old lady.

She is a confused old lady.

She is looking old.

She is losing weight.

She is my Grandma.

I love her heaps.

I dread the day we will eventually lose her.

New School Year

WoW! I can't believe we are already a few weeks into the new school year.

Nor can I believe that it's been over 3 months since I last blogged. I have been reading blogs but my life got a hell of a lot busier over the summer & that's a whole other story to tell.

I did take a photo to share with you of the notes that came home on the first day back to school.

3 kids at 2 schools = LOTS OF NOTES!

They brought home several more over the next few days too.

Here are the culprits!

I always kept a folder for each school (with a 7 year age gap, our 2 boys are always going to be at different schools) but this year I need to devise a different system, as we have welcomed my beautiful teenage niece into our home over the summer break, who is at the same school as our eldest son. So now I need a way of keeping track of his bits, her bits & common bits. I will still have a separate folder for our younger son & now I have a preschool folder for Missy Megan's paperwork too.

How would you tackle this one?