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Jan. 6th, 2026 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnSo, we had a winter break!
We had our family Christmas on Christmas Eve, going to D's church's Christmas Eve service, making and opening presents, etc. We got to the airport at 5am Christmas day to go visit my family and were promptly informed (we had gotten no communication from Southwest beforehand) that the airport had flooded and all flights were grounded. Not totally unexpected, as there had been a lot of rain, but kind of annoying. After some back and forth during which we went home and fell back into bed, then were informed that our flight was leaving after all two hours earlier than they'd said and we were about to miss it, then rebooked for later (which at least allowed me to leave Yuletide gift comments), then finally got out that afternoon, then were able to catch an earlier connection than we were booked for. Yay! Keeping track of local news after that, I learned that the airport flooded again an hour after our rebooked flight left (and I think it didn't open back up again until the next day), so we got out just in time. It's been flooding off and on since then, when it rains again, and we were lucky enough that our flight back was not on one of the rainy days. I think no more rain for a while, now.
Anyway. Had lots of family time!
- went out to dinner with my sister, yum
- updated my dad's email password in his phone so that it gets email now, which it turns out it hasn't done since mid-December when his email got phished and my brother-in-law (BIL) helped him change his password, but had forgotten to do it for his phone, and apparently it didn't occur to my dad that he should maybe tell BIL this (dad told mom he was "having problems" with his email)
- that was part of the process of my sister getting proxy status for both my parents' healthcare, which is a relief
- helped my mom get signed up for her church newsletter, which was quite a bit more involved than I feel like it ought to have been (my process: email the woman in charge of the newsletter and ask her to add me. Her process had rather more steps and it took a while!)
- practiced violin with the kiddos so they could do a little Christmas music program for the grandparents like my sister and I used to do. Since the last time we did this two years ago, both A. and his 11-year-old cousin O. have gotten much more ensemble experience which is really, really obvious, especially when compared with O's 8-year-old sibling JA who has a lot less, and it was rather a delight to see how easily they could play together compared to last time when it was much more like herding cats.
- found out that O. and JA did not know any of the classic Christmas carols, and made them learn "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World," those being the ones that A. knows how to play on piano so it doubled as him practicing those for the family Christmas program
- found out that they were super confused about the lyrics of "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World," because although O. and JA had been told the origin of Hanukkah at school, they had not the faintest idea about the origin of Christmas. I asked their parents whether they had any issues with my reading them the Christmas story; they did not (they are not particularly religious but they don't have any objection to the kids learning about it, and they know me well enough to know I will try super hard not to proselytize), so I read it to them. I did not elide the slaughter of the innocents by Herod, which was predictably their favorite part.
- fielded mom being disappointed because she had expected lyrics for singing along and I did not deliver paper copies of those (they were available on the smartphones), which I had said I would do, and I knew that was going to happen but got busy with the other things
- helped O and JA make short presentations that my dad had requested (my kids had done theirs before we left town). O and JA are definitely better at giving presentations than A. is; he's too quiet and too tongue-tied. O and JA can totally just stand up and do it, while I think A. probably needs to practice a few times first (which he didn't). A.'s presentation was quite a bit more mathematical than his cousins', though we successfully hid the actual math under numbers (and I had him put the math in backup slides in case he was asked, which he wasn't) so I don't think it was too obvious. (My parents are not the sort of grandparents where you want to highlight any difference in skill level between grandchildren, especially if it's academic. Something like presentation skill is less fraught, though, because they don't really recognize that as a skill.)
- babysat for my sister and BIL so they could go out on a date (this was not exactly a super onerous task given the kids played Xbox for most of the time)
On my dad specifically:
- had many talks with my sister (starting actually a couple of days before we traveled) about exactly how incapacitated our dad is. tl;dr: we... don't actually know? He is definitely having issues where sometimes it appears he will forget things that happened very quickly, like, five minutes ago, and e.g. asks the same question multiple times. But it's sporadic. Sometimes he forgets and sometimes he remembers things fine. He can hold a reasonably lucid conversation, including getting simple jokes, but will repeat himself, and rambles. I understand that he has some other issues especially in places that are unfamiliar (my sister's house is familiar). My sister thought (at least at the beginning of the trip) that he had tipped over into the moderate stage of dementia... although see next bullet, it's kind of murky. My sister and I both agreed that it was a bit hard to pin down not least because when he displayed any sort of issue, our mom would immediately yell at him and then our focus would switch to calming her down so that sort of has been masking whatever problems he may be having
- on the other hand... as part of this whole getting proxy healthcare status... my sister also discovered results from the hearing doctor, results that she didn't previously know about, which shows that his middle frequency hearing is very good but his high-frequency hearing drops off quite rapidly, which is totally common for someone in his 80's and nothing to be concerned about, but it turns out that makes it very hard to distinguish speech and is extremely likely to be contributing to what we're seeing here -- like, I wonder whether sometimes when he asks questions multiple times if he just didn't hear what was said to him before. On the other hand it's not really clear what the answer is, as it does not seem he will consent to wearing a hearing aid, which would be the easiest answer
- but it's definitely true that it is hard for him to understand anything more complex than a very simple "if X... then Y" sort of argument. This is made worse by my family having always been totally bad at explaining anything. It's also the case that I noticed him having trouble with this a couple of years ago, and it doesn't appear to me that it's gotten substantially worse since then, which... I guess... modified yay??
- apparently our mom has been canceling a bunch of our dad's doctor appointments, including the last hearing doctor appointment. My sister and I both think that this is because if the doctor recommends anything that will make her life more difficult (that he needs hearing aids, that he might not be able to drive, etc.) neither of them wants to hear it. But my sister now knows about the next doctor's appointment and will go there with them. sigh
- my sister is going to talk to the doctor about him driving after we get the hearing stuff sorted, which is a relief. (I don't even know if he needs to stop driving! But I think someone who is qualified to judge this stuff ought to be deciding!)
We had our family Christmas on Christmas Eve, going to D's church's Christmas Eve service, making and opening presents, etc. We got to the airport at 5am Christmas day to go visit my family and were promptly informed (we had gotten no communication from Southwest beforehand) that the airport had flooded and all flights were grounded. Not totally unexpected, as there had been a lot of rain, but kind of annoying. After some back and forth during which we went home and fell back into bed, then were informed that our flight was leaving after all two hours earlier than they'd said and we were about to miss it, then rebooked for later (which at least allowed me to leave Yuletide gift comments), then finally got out that afternoon, then were able to catch an earlier connection than we were booked for. Yay! Keeping track of local news after that, I learned that the airport flooded again an hour after our rebooked flight left (and I think it didn't open back up again until the next day), so we got out just in time. It's been flooding off and on since then, when it rains again, and we were lucky enough that our flight back was not on one of the rainy days. I think no more rain for a while, now.
Anyway. Had lots of family time!
- went out to dinner with my sister, yum
- updated my dad's email password in his phone so that it gets email now, which it turns out it hasn't done since mid-December when his email got phished and my brother-in-law (BIL) helped him change his password, but had forgotten to do it for his phone, and apparently it didn't occur to my dad that he should maybe tell BIL this (dad told mom he was "having problems" with his email)
- that was part of the process of my sister getting proxy status for both my parents' healthcare, which is a relief
- helped my mom get signed up for her church newsletter, which was quite a bit more involved than I feel like it ought to have been (my process: email the woman in charge of the newsletter and ask her to add me. Her process had rather more steps and it took a while!)
- practiced violin with the kiddos so they could do a little Christmas music program for the grandparents like my sister and I used to do. Since the last time we did this two years ago, both A. and his 11-year-old cousin O. have gotten much more ensemble experience which is really, really obvious, especially when compared with O's 8-year-old sibling JA who has a lot less, and it was rather a delight to see how easily they could play together compared to last time when it was much more like herding cats.
- found out that O. and JA did not know any of the classic Christmas carols, and made them learn "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World," those being the ones that A. knows how to play on piano so it doubled as him practicing those for the family Christmas program
- found out that they were super confused about the lyrics of "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World," because although O. and JA had been told the origin of Hanukkah at school, they had not the faintest idea about the origin of Christmas. I asked their parents whether they had any issues with my reading them the Christmas story; they did not (they are not particularly religious but they don't have any objection to the kids learning about it, and they know me well enough to know I will try super hard not to proselytize), so I read it to them. I did not elide the slaughter of the innocents by Herod, which was predictably their favorite part.
- fielded mom being disappointed because she had expected lyrics for singing along and I did not deliver paper copies of those (they were available on the smartphones), which I had said I would do, and I knew that was going to happen but got busy with the other things
- helped O and JA make short presentations that my dad had requested (my kids had done theirs before we left town). O and JA are definitely better at giving presentations than A. is; he's too quiet and too tongue-tied. O and JA can totally just stand up and do it, while I think A. probably needs to practice a few times first (which he didn't). A.'s presentation was quite a bit more mathematical than his cousins', though we successfully hid the actual math under numbers (and I had him put the math in backup slides in case he was asked, which he wasn't) so I don't think it was too obvious. (My parents are not the sort of grandparents where you want to highlight any difference in skill level between grandchildren, especially if it's academic. Something like presentation skill is less fraught, though, because they don't really recognize that as a skill.)
- babysat for my sister and BIL so they could go out on a date (this was not exactly a super onerous task given the kids played Xbox for most of the time)
On my dad specifically:
- had many talks with my sister (starting actually a couple of days before we traveled) about exactly how incapacitated our dad is. tl;dr: we... don't actually know? He is definitely having issues where sometimes it appears he will forget things that happened very quickly, like, five minutes ago, and e.g. asks the same question multiple times. But it's sporadic. Sometimes he forgets and sometimes he remembers things fine. He can hold a reasonably lucid conversation, including getting simple jokes, but will repeat himself, and rambles. I understand that he has some other issues especially in places that are unfamiliar (my sister's house is familiar). My sister thought (at least at the beginning of the trip) that he had tipped over into the moderate stage of dementia... although see next bullet, it's kind of murky. My sister and I both agreed that it was a bit hard to pin down not least because when he displayed any sort of issue, our mom would immediately yell at him and then our focus would switch to calming her down so that sort of has been masking whatever problems he may be having
- on the other hand... as part of this whole getting proxy healthcare status... my sister also discovered results from the hearing doctor, results that she didn't previously know about, which shows that his middle frequency hearing is very good but his high-frequency hearing drops off quite rapidly, which is totally common for someone in his 80's and nothing to be concerned about, but it turns out that makes it very hard to distinguish speech and is extremely likely to be contributing to what we're seeing here -- like, I wonder whether sometimes when he asks questions multiple times if he just didn't hear what was said to him before. On the other hand it's not really clear what the answer is, as it does not seem he will consent to wearing a hearing aid, which would be the easiest answer
- but it's definitely true that it is hard for him to understand anything more complex than a very simple "if X... then Y" sort of argument. This is made worse by my family having always been totally bad at explaining anything. It's also the case that I noticed him having trouble with this a couple of years ago, and it doesn't appear to me that it's gotten substantially worse since then, which... I guess... modified yay??
- apparently our mom has been canceling a bunch of our dad's doctor appointments, including the last hearing doctor appointment. My sister and I both think that this is because if the doctor recommends anything that will make her life more difficult (that he needs hearing aids, that he might not be able to drive, etc.) neither of them wants to hear it. But my sister now knows about the next doctor's appointment and will go there with them. sigh
- my sister is going to talk to the doctor about him driving after we get the hearing stuff sorted, which is a relief. (I don't even know if he needs to stop driving! But I think someone who is qualified to judge this stuff ought to be deciding!)
no subject
Date: 2026-01-08 12:59 am (UTC)Sorry to hear about the stuff with your dad—that sounds really hard, especially with your mom’s response to it. Some of the things sound very familiar in relation to what we’ve been seeing from my mom, especially asking the same question multiple times. She actually decided herself that she shouldn’t be driving anymore, which I think was a good decision on her part. Glad to hear your sister is going to check in with the doctor about that.
Also, A’s mathematical presentation sounds adorable! What was it about?
no subject
Date: 2026-01-08 01:30 am (UTC)If your father has hearing issues and prefers not using a hearing aid, his cognition is likely to slide a little, regardless of other factors, because he's receiving and processing less cognitive input. Sometimes, uh, it is what it is, and trying to pin cause to improve effect won't have much of a net-positive result. (Same thing the other direction: after my mother finally went in for cataract surgery, her thinking became somewhat clearer in ways she herself could notice, which was wacky.) Doesn't always work thus, but some sort of input/output parity is a thing when a person no longer feels very strongly motivated to adapt via alternative forms of input (emphasizing touch or sight instead for a hearing issue, e.g.). Just two cents.
no subject
Date: 2026-01-08 05:55 pm (UTC)Yeah... On one hand, it's really true that she does a lot for him and I expect he will be able to live independently for a lot longer than he would be if she weren't around. On the other hand, emotionally she is definitely not reacting well to any of it. Ohh I'm really glad your mom decided she wouldn't drive anymore! That must be a relief.
Haha, it's more of an applied mathematical presentation -- my dad had decided that he wanted to teach the rising generation about investment (which I think is great), so he gave each of the grandkids a small account a couple of years ago with a couple of stocks/mutual funds, and wanted them to present on it. With O. and JA, I just had them calculate how much the stocks had gone up; neither of them has done percentages yet. A. has just got to the point where he understands how to calculate average percentage growth per year, so he calculated that and also wrote up how he did it, which was very cute. (His first attempt was all in words, and was about as easy to follow as you might expect; I gently suggested that he might want to use some equations :) )
no subject
Date: 2026-01-08 06:01 pm (UTC)*nods* Thanks for that. It occurred to me that there is at least a chance that our dad might be receptive to the argument of "hearing aids will help you not develop dementia [so quickly]" and I talked to my sister about presenting that argument. That's wacky (but very cool) about the cataract surgery!
no subject
Date: 2026-01-09 06:49 pm (UTC)Good luck :)
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Date: 2026-01-10 03:42 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2026-01-13 09:12 pm (UTC)