Thursday dawns and my daughter (d1) calls and says she and her boyfriend can head over to Grandpa’s tonite along with us, would that be OK? I told her I was going to call him later and let him know and to just plan on it. I made my call and he did his usual, come ahead and will just get through it! sigh……
Our excitement had been dampened but we get ready and head out after dh gets home from work. My niece calls several times and says she is excited to see all of us so that spurs us on…. We arrive about 8PM we get unloaded and put our stuff where we will be sleeping. We didn’t get to see dad over Christmas due to the weather so my youngest is handing Pop-pop all his presents and helping him open them.
He seems like he is handling it all OK at that moment enjoying the attention. We had all eaten before we got there which was good and spent some time visiting although n1 and dhn2 were working and we for the most part just let them do that.
When I was catching up with n1 she said that Grandpa had been hovering over them since they set up their computers, originally they were working in the kitchen but since we were arriving they moved dhn2 downstairs to sleep and hooked up their computers downstairs as well with the hope to get some undisturbed work done. My dad isn’t too computer savvy, he has one of his own he uses but doesn’t really get all that computers can do nor does he fully understand the internet and how it works so he was asking them lots of questions…..and they were having trouble getting stuff done. That day, he had n1 go to the store with him, visit with his neighbor etc etc and she didn’t get sat down to work until 2PM!
She also told me when they arrived after traveling for 12 hours that Grandpa spent the first 1/2 hour with them telling them about how to throw the garbage out, not to put food down the sink, hovering over her while she was helping him in the kitchen, just weird stuff like that. Well, I am used to that with him cos he is my dad but they weren’t……so I felt bad for them 
Dhn2 just did not get the whole garbage thing…..I don’t either but I fake it well!
Friday dawns and we are hitting the Goodwill and going out to lunch; n1 says she is almost done with all she needs to do and to call her, she might join us. Dad did not want to come as he is a bit unsteady and tires easily. We called n1 as we were checking out at Goodwill and she was showered and done with her work and ready to come join us…..she told Grandpa and he just frowned, I think he thought we were pulling her away from her work. She assured him she was in a great spot and ready to spend a little time with us.
After lunch we hit the mall and browsed around, we had tentatively made plans to order pizza or something for dinner before we left home and we weren’t really worried about it as we had a big lunch and we weren’t too hungry. My dad usually has a glass of wine and chips and dip on a Friday but generally he is pretty routine with his meals and likes to eat on his time clock. We called him and it was after 5PM and he wasn’t very happy, we weren’t home yet, no sign of dinner etc etc. I hung up and we conferenced……so, we decided we’d order pizza and pick it up on the way home. I called him back and he wasn’t up for that, he didn’t want to eat pizza and we could figure out our dinner ourselves. He just was in a crazy mood. I asked him why he was so upset and he just said everything was wrong and hadn’t I been watching the TV……..hmmmmmm……
Feeling quite awful, we ordered pizza and headed for home after n1 and our youngest got their hair done. 
We got home about 6:45, not too terribly late for most people! Pizza and refreshments in hand we arrived and tried to be normal going in the house and it was as if he wasn’t nasty on the phone at all……just too strange! We all hung out together for quite a while and he seemed generally OK, he wasn’t really talking to me at all though. I was persona nongrata for the weekend anyway so I didn’t let it bother me.
Saturday dawned, we asked Grandpa if he’d like to join us and he declined and I figured he would, we were going to out and about all day and it would be just too much for him. 
We hit all the local sites, Pike Place Market, Seattle Center, Ivar’s and the waterfront, we even went up the Space Needle as the day had gone from gray and gloom to clear and beautiful. The view was spectacular and I was thrilled as 4 of the 7 of us had never gone up the needle before.
We checked in frequently with dad and that was good, he seemed in a better mood. He had even taken Sadie the dog (who wasn’t welcome!!) for a walk! After hitting Alki Beach and getting a quick coffee at Starbucks we called dad and said we would be coming home to make dinner which was great but caused much grumbling from dad as the stove got dirty (imagine that!) nothing a little elbow grease wouldn’t take care of.
The bottom line is we all managed to have a brilliant time without sending my father too over the edge. He just worries more about his “stuff” than enjoying the family that is around him. It makes everyone in my family very sad that he is like that and through it all we love him but he sure makes it difficult sometimes!!
I also talked to my older sis just yesterday and we both realized that last weeks phone call was us putting on dad’s stress…..so we are all good and that is great! Moral there is don’t let someone else’s stress become your own……we all have enough of our own at times to take on any more!
Till next time….
Grace
One of the very special things about being a mom is watching your children interact with family and friends and other little kids. When our youngest was barely talking if we were out and about and she saw another child she was like, look there is my best friend (even though she had never seen them before!!)
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