What Kate and the sitters do has changed since I first engaged them a year and four months ago. That was a time when Kate and I were accustomed to going to Panera more frequently. We went almost every morning and some afternoons. When I arranged for a sitter, I bought a Panera gift card and told Kate and the sitter that they could go to Panera anytime they wanted. I remember how Kate’s eyes would light up when I said that. She looked at Panera as an outing. That was true even when it was just the two of us. With the sitter, I think it was also a way of breaking up the time until I returned.
That worked beautifully for almost a year. It began to change when Kate started sleeping later, and we weren’t going to Panera as often. I might have guessed that would make an afternoon trip even more appealing, but it didn’t. Like many things, I am not sure why. When I returned home, I often found that Kate was resting or had rested a lot while I was gone. That bothered me because I felt she wasn’t getting enough stimulation.
At the same time, I was looking for other ways to entertain Kate in the evening when we returned home from dinner. Our regular routine was for me to watch the evening news while she worked jigsaw puzzles on her iPad. I wanted her to have something else to entertain her, especially since she was beginning to have difficulty working her puzzles. I bought about ten DVDs of musicals that I thought she might enjoy. We would watch about an hour a night. Watching musicals like Les Misérables and Fiddler on the Roof could easily take us six nights. Kate loved it. She clearly has favorites. We watched Les Misérables seven times in one seven-week stretch last summer.
As I became more concerned about Kate’s time with the sitter, I decided to try the DVDs when the sitter was here. That also worked well. It was entertaining for both Kate and the sitter. I liked the idea of their engaging in something together even if it was a passive activity.
Gradually, I expanded the musical performances we watch at night by going to YouTube. Their selections are endless and growing all the time. The key is finding something that Kate will enjoy. During the fall, that meant a lot of Christmas music. I also discovered that The Tabernacle Choir seems to have one of the largest libraries of music videos. There are plenty of others as well. I often search for a particular singer, for example, Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bocelli, The Three Tenors, etc.
My next step was to set up the YouTube videos for the sitter and Kate to watch. That has also worked well. One time during the Christmas season, I had set up one of the Christmas videos by the Tabernacle Choir. It was about an hour in length. I told the sitter she could turn it off at the end of the program. I also mentioned that if she didn’t, it would continue with other videos. When I got home four hours later, they were still watching Tabernacle Choir videos. They hadn’t stopped the entire time I was gone. They were both happy.
Since then I have been preparing something for them to watch at least once a week, sometimes more. Yesterday was one of those days. I selected a Bill Moyers documentary about the hymn “Amazing Grace.” It was about an hour and twenty minutes. As I have done before, I told the sitter that she could turn off the TV after the program was over or let it roll over to other videos. When I got home, they were both still watching the videos. “Amazing Grace” was over long before. They were now watching musical flash mobs. This is something I hadn’t thought about. If I had, I would have probably searched for them. Instead, they had simply come up according to the algorithm used by YouTube.
Mary told me that Kate rested a couple of times during the videos but kept coming back. I suspect that was a result of her liking some more than others. The important thing is that I have found a source of amusement for Kate apart from her iPad. The bonus is that it also helps her pass the time while I am gone. At the moment I am not planning to have a video every time the sitter comes, but once or twice a week might work well.
