As I’ve said many times, change is a big part of our lives now. Sometimes the changes seem to come out of nowhere and, thus, are more surprising than others. Yesterday afternoon, Kate experienced two changes in her mood and behavior that caught me off guard. The first one demanded a lot of my attention. I welcomed the second.
Our day had been a very good one. She was up at 7:30. She was confused, but it was a time when she was ready to do whatever I suggested. I told her I thought it might be good to get up and have breakfast. I had already finished mine but enjoyed having my coffee while she ate.
After breakfast we adjourned to the family room where I thought she would immediately decide to rest, but she didn’t. Instead, she was interested in looking at a photo book. It wasn’t long before she was tired and rested until time for an early lunch.
She rested again as soon as we finished lunch. She didn’t sleep much, and the last hour she tried to read a booklet that her mother’s Sunday school class had given her for her birthday in 1989. It was filled with things the class had heard her say many times during the years she had taught. I asked several times if I could read some of it to her. She finally accepted, and we both enjoyed ourselves.
Then it was time for dinner. I placed an order at a nearby Mediterranean restaurant. On the way, Kate asked for her lipstick. I was surprised. It had been months since she asked about lipstick, and I stopped carrying it. (I suspected that she must have thought we were going to see someone, but she didn’t say anything that would confirm this until much later.) As it turned out, this was the beginning of the first significant change in her mood and behavior. I explained that we could get it when we got home. I never thought she would remember it. This was another time I was wrong. As we were eating, she asked for it.
I went to the bedroom and brought it back to her. I started to open it myself, but she wanted to do it. She extended the lipstick too far, and it broke off. She grabbed it with her hands and put it on her lips. In the process she made quite a mess on her hands and her cloth napkin. I got something to wipe her hands, but it wasn’t easy to remove all of it.
As we continued eating, she asked about the location of her salmon and her cucumber salad on her plate. I hadn’t thought much about it, but she had pushed them around after I served her. I told her it was fine. I added that she could put them wherever she wanted.
It got more serious later. She had finished eating and was now applying her aesthetic tastes to the arrangement of her leftover food. That would have been fine, but she wanted my help. I said something that was a playful response to her request. That was the wrong thing to do. This was a serious matter for her. She had pushed all the remaining food together toward the center of the plate. She was concerned about a couple of blank spaces where there was no food. I picked up a couple of pieces of cucumber and filled in one of the gaps, but she wasn’t satisfied. She started moving grains of rice and pieces of tomato to balance the “food art” she was creating. She picked up several things and put them on her placemat. During this process that took about twenty minutes, she mentioned that “she would like it better over here (referring to portions of the food). She wanted to know what I thought. I said, “It looks good to me.”
Then she extended her art beyond the bounds of her plate. She crumpled a piece of a paper towel and put it on the placemat and pushed it toward the center of the table. She also picked up the two coasters and made them part of the art. Subsequently, she added two catalogs, a coloring book, and crayons. At some point, she said something about wanting it to look right for “them.” In this case, she was talking about people who were coming to the house. Finally, she stopped, but she wanted me to put the plate with the food in safe place. I put it in the refrigerator.
Then we went to the bedroom where I helped her get ready for bed. She has been getting in bed around 7:15 or 7:30 recently. This time she got into her night clothes but wasn’t ready for bed. She wanted to know what she should do. I asked if she would like to look at one of her photo books. She did, and I brought her the “Big Sister” album. I knew she would have problems with it, but I figured she would probably give up and go to bed. Wrong again. This came at a time when I wanted to clean up a few things in the family room and kitchen before taking my shower. She was insistent on my helping her. She seemed to be under pressure for something.
She asked what she should do. I explained that she should go through the book looking at the pictures. I told her she would see a lot of pictures of herself, her brother, and her mother and father. This didn’t help her. I pointed to a picture and told her some of the things I noticed about it and told her that was the kind of thing she could do. I was surprised when she seemed to get the idea. She started her own narrative with a photo. Then she said, “It’s your turn.”
I told her there were a few things I needed to take care of and would also be taking a shower. I said I would come back to her. That’s when she said something about our preparing for someone to arrive and that we were going to put on a show for them with the photo book. She would tell her story with one photo. Then I would tell my story with another and so forth. I helped a little longer before telling her to continue while I took my shower.
I was sure she would become frustrated and give up on the album by the time I returned. That was when I got the second surprise. She had changed completely. She had gone through the entire book and was on the last page or two. This was a surprise because she doesn’t usually spend that much time when she is looking at it by herself. She was her happy normal self. Apparently, she had forgotten about the guests who were coming and no longer had to worry about being prepared for them. Whatever the reason, it was nice to end the day with her in a good mood.
I should add that I had not previously observed anything that would make me think she was “sundowning;” however, her behavior was different enough from other situations that I thought about that. In the future, I will be more attentive to this possibility.
