Baby Shower Weekend!

Wonderful weekend!

I was not sure h0w to start this post until I started it.  I apologise in advance for how upbeat this post will be, as I love OD for a place to write what is not working in our lives … but hey, I am pretty happy.

My Youngest is expecting her very welcome first child (a daughter) in late November.  Her sister (my oldest) and I hosted a baby shower event at Oldest’s house Saturday.

Hubby and I drove up to Dallas-ish from Houson-ish on Thursday.  Hubby and I took my dementia Mom to an extensive doctor appointment and also to her flu shot (because it was in the same building … didn’t involve a separate car-ride-transfer) on Friday.  Saturday morning all of the adult men took all of the kids to play soccer games.  Meanwhile, Oldest’s mother-in-law (with whom I am friends – heck, we travelled with she and her Hubby to Egypt Oct 2019!) plus me and my daughter cleaned the house (final layer), set out the chairs, flowers, food, music (that was me) etc to prepare for a mostly outdoor event.

I am telling you all of this to explain the pictures that I hope to attach to this document.  In the after-party (which was planned), my sister’s daughter heard Oldest get a commitment from me to give her the photos from this day within 2 weeks.  Neice was puzzled, but I explained “Oldest means within 2 weeks, otherwise it might be in 5 years.”  All good.  So when I got the text today (after I got home) and saw that Oldest was asking for a couple of specific photos to get her Facebook page started (which I will be able to contribute to), I just went ahead and got the pre-party pics sorted and sent to her.

The other significant part of the weekend is my Mom.  My sister thought it SUPER important to get Mom to this shower.  I was not against her coming, but felt that I needed to support my daughter more on shower day, so said “no, I will not drive round-trip 2 hours to pick Mom up, and the drive 2 hours round-trip later to take her home.”  I told Sis that  Mom would be happy to see the new baby in December on a visit from my daughter — with no movement of Mom at all.  I told my sister that Mom would not remember the day at all.  My sister felt differently (not about the memory-issue, but about the importance), and caused herself her own level of stress for backing down on a church obligation Saturday to bring Mom to the shower.

Do not get me wrong.  I am not against volunteerism for church or anything else.  I certainly do a lot of that — church (lately) and Girl Scouts (previously).

Sister did bring Mom to the shower.  She later reported that on delivering Mom to her facility, Mom told people 3 times that she had had an amazing day at “a baby shower for her nephew and his wife.”  I told my son-in-law later that he had been promoted in the family, apparantly.  Hubby then told me that while driving her to her appointment on Friday, even after recognizing him by name when we first walked in (together) to pick her up, she continually glanced over at him with a bit of nervousness as she was not sure who he was (I was in the back seat – out of her sight).

Sigh, the dementia is going exactly where we knew it would.

So… How about some pictures of the baby shower preparations!