Ta @Determined. Was a mixed day.
I had been getting frustrated at seeing our Older Daughter expecting others in the shared house adjust around her, instead of her adjusting to them. I'm wondering if that was one thing that contributed to it not working out. But it's made me more conscious of how we do the same... so Christmas Day, I was trying not to make exceptions for her, which led to some mild clashes, and a bit of grumpiness and grumbliness on my part.
Lunch was nice, but did happen late. Too much I hadn't been able to do beforehand. I insisted that anyone who wasn't helping had to be out of the room so they weren't underfoot. Younger Son and my sister helped with a few things, then went off to look at the town's street decorations. Older Daughter and Older Son baulked at the idea, but when I insisted, they opted to retreat to Younger Daughter's room. Hubby hung around and helped clear space and tidy up. Yeah, unfortunately I didn't get the table cleared before yesterday. (I did make enough tidy space around our fireplace for Younger Daughter to put up decorations with me the day before. That was fun. 🙂 )
Older Daughter hasn't been eating properly since moving back with her brother. So another point of clash was over food. I was fine with her having a small serve as long as she ate something. But there was a dish of scalloped potatoes... very hot and creamy, not something we could pass around the table for everyone to help themseves, so we were getting people to pass their plates down instead. She got a bit upset over that too. Seems that was because she thought anyone serving would give her too much. One of those funny mental glitches of hers, that somehow she didn't think she could ask for a small amount?
Hubby took her home about 5-6-ish, the others stayed on a bit longer so we could play a fun game. He took the two sons to their respective homes 9-10-ish... arrived at Older Son & Daughters house to find that she'd SH'd and had called an ambulance.
We really don't like how much she ties up the ambulance services. Hubby was wanting to take her in himself, but he was already exhausted. She told him to go home, he did, and he did need to, but that was a hard choice. I have no idea whether my trying to insist that she give way on some little things contributed to her state of mind, or whether she was so close to her limits that it would have happened anyway. She finds ordinary friendly family banter hard to take, so a shared dinner is stressful for her regardless.
Phonecalls to parents were hard too. Dad's was OK cheery enough, his memory was on a short loop, but that's no biggie. I wound up the conversation on the third or fourth time through the same conversation- with little variations each time. But Mum is lonely, miserable, and in pain. Not much we can do about any of that. She's outlived her quality of life, which is hard to watch.
I wanted to do some dairy free special treat baking for my sister (she's dairy intolerant), and didn't get time for that, so we've agreed to get together on New Years Day for a bit of a mini-celebration. Younger Daughter's going to visit a friend for a week+ from today, so it will just be Hubby and me here. Am hoping things settle enough otherwise for some relax time and some productive time.
