Sunday

Mom called me yesterday to tell me Dad had been pitching hissy fits all weekend. She said he pitched them with the fan and yelled for her and Chantal all night. They resolved that problem, and now it's his hearing aids. He's obsessed with them. And he breaks the backs off them trying to fix them. He also breaks them by pushing the battery too far down into it. I told her I was about to head down there. She said, "That's why I called you. He insists that you come down here." He and Joseph (who is wonderful) were sitting in the carport when I got there. BTW, he was pitching such fits Sat. night that Joseph wouldn't leave him to go to bed. He slept on the floor in front of the sofa! Dad and I immediately got into it about the hearing aids. He was blaming everyone else, and I told him it was him. I made him so mad I thought he was going to come out of that wheelchair! Then I gave up reasoning with him and had to start going "Shhh, shhh..." to calm him down. Like you do with children to calm them.

He enjoyed hearing about Bay City Lodge and St. George Island. He loved to hear all about it. He kept saying, "I wish..." and I said, "I know. Me too." He loved his tshirt and he and Mom both loved the fig preserves and muscadine jelly Robin bought them at Stripling's. I had to tell them all about Stripling's and the sausage and country ham and Eddie's cooking. Dad wanted to know how the gps took us there and back. I told him the best I could remember. I said we didn't go all the way to Tallahassee on the way home. He said he never went to Tallahassee. I told him I had, but that I thought I went a different way every time I went. :) They love it that I have a gps now.

I told them I would get the paperwork going so that he can be a MARTA paratransit passenger. They both like that idea. I have to call the p.t. today, and I told them I would ask him to work with Dad on getting in and out of the car. They both like that idea, too. And if the p.t. can't do it, I think I can discourage them from going to P'tree Rd. Friday. Mom should go, but not Dad. It will take several weeks to get him on as a MARTA passenger.

I talked to him several times about letting Mom and Joseph sleep last night. I kept chiding him about it and he would laugh and say, "O.K." When I left, I took all his hearing aids, except the ones in his ears, with me. I told him I would get them fixed but it would take me more than a day. And if he didn't behave, I would come back and get the ones in his ears, too, and that that would really fix him. He laughed. My point was made.