I am the primary caregiver of my grandmother Laurette. My mom lives across town and is my relief when I need to be gone either for an evening or a long trip. We both need a break and I had a ton of frequent flyer miles, so I decided to bring her to France for her birthday. The flights were $100 round trip! Brilliant.

After we got past the initial elation of (basically) free tickets to France we realized that we had to arrange for two weeks of grandma sitters. This is an experiment that has not yet been tried in my family. I try to keep everybody informed of her condition, but that's very different from living with it. My sister is also in town and the rest of the family seemed to assume that she would pick up the slack but she has a 1 year old boy, is pregnant, and is trying to finish a bathroom remodel before she gets too big to move around. She's not exactly sitting around idle.

I managed to coerce a few other family members to come and stay here for a few days at a time so nobody has more than a few days in a row. My sister still has to take a few days, but I managed to get all the days covered. We'll see how it goes. I think I'm going to need to make the equivalent of lesson plans! My guess is that Laurette will be fine and my family members will have a harder time than her. =-) I just KNOW all my plants on the patio will be dead when I return.

My family is great, but I'll still have my fingers crossed...

Why is it we think no one can do as good a job as we can. We tend to forget that we were once novices in caring for our LO as others.
But we did did get to start from the beginning and gradually work our way up to full blown AD.

I'll keep my fingers crossed also Jezza. You and Mom deserve a nice relaxing trip. Just have a lot of fun and keep mom entertained as a mother should be.

How wonderful!

Regarding your lesson plans, our caregiver asked me for some "If...Then..." suggestions as far as my mother's behavioral cues. For instance, it never fails if Mom lets out a big 'sigh' with "okay!" that means it's time to change the scenery or more than likely agitation sets in, and nobody wants that. It was a challenge to put down on paper what I've learned to do automatically--if--but she said she found it helpful. If nothing else it gave her a little added security as to what works, when.

I'll keep my fingers crossed too, for all involved!

Wow, what a great birthday for your Mom!

Uh, mine's in July

I hope you & Mom wll be able to relax, and enjoy, Paris! Take me! Take me! $100.00? What a bargain! I always wanted to do Paris in April. It's on the Bucket-List.

Joyce, the reason we don't think others can do it as well, is well, because they can't! Just my opinion. Or is it that those of us that think if we don't do it, it wont get done right?

I don't now, I happen to believe that the essential ingrediant to Caregiving, is to Care??!!?? If they dont care, they are not going to do a good job. If they do, it is much more likely, that through trial and error, they will.

About the plants: I use the Auqaglobes (Walmart sells them). They work great and keep my plants watered for a full two weeks. I haven't had one die yet, knock on wood and I have been using them since Christmas, when I was given them as Christmas gifts from my husband. He bought me two packs (they come 2 to a pack) at first and I ended up buying two more packs to use in all my plants. They can even be used in hanging baskets.

I found a site that might help you:
http://www.silive.com/homegarden/garden ... e_you.html

There are others, of course. I Googled outdoor plants+vacation an came up with several hits. I'm a plant/flower lover too:)

Have fun in France. When is your sister's baby due?

A list of things to do with Grandma, some 'if--then' suggestions, a list of things that makes her happy and what things may cause a meltdown.... They'll do great! At the least, they'll have a better understanding of what you deal with on a daily basis!

Do you have back-up Granny Nannies?

It will all work out just fine and if other members of your family end up tearing their hair out just consider it a growing experience.

Have a wonderful trip with your mom and try not to worry about things on the home front.

I think it's because we perceive our ADLOs as vulnerable. It seems similar to me to the nervousness parents feel the first few times they have a babysitter over, even if it's grandma.

VIVE LA FRANCE, OUI?

Hope you and your Mom have a lovely vacation. I'm sure everything will be fine.

p.s. "The Big One" is taking Spanish in college. He taught me how to say, "shut up your mouth".

Have a great time! Eat some croissants for me! I'm weird since I like the garlic butter snails lol.

I hope the grandma sitting goes well!

Kat

I hope you and your mom have a wonderful time.

Enjoy, you'll have a wonderful time!!!

I installed a drip system on all the plants. It's on a new circut with the sprinklers so I won't have to remember them in the future either. I think the system will pay for itself in a year by avoiding dead plants!!

The if-then idea is great. I think I'll start jotting things down now so that by the time I'm ready to go I have a decent list. I doubt I could think of everything all at once.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Jezza,
Your idea just reminded me of a system I did, and wanted to share. It is for houseplants.

Spread a plastic sheet, big enough to hold your plants, plus a small ladder(or equivalent).
Fill a bucket with at least enough water to supply your plants for how ever long you will be.
Put the bucket on the ladder, stool, etc. It must be above the plants.
Arrange your plants on the sheet, around the bucket.
Take a shoe string for each plant, and run it from inside the bucket, to in the soil of the plant.
The water will travel down the shoelace to the plant, and provide a constant water supply.

I have had this set-up on my deck outside many times.

Hi guys,

I just wanted to let you all know that I'm back in town. Everything went fine here at home. The people that came in to sub were aware of what they were getting in to, but they still had a few eye-openers that I think will make them appreciate what goes on here on a daily basis.

The microwave smells like something burned out, one cat peed in my recording studio, the other cat broke his foot, half of the flowers died, and one of my sitters threw away about 1/3 of the linens in my cupboard because she thought they were too old.

But ... Laurette was fine. She hardly missed me, and I think she enjoyed the activity and change of pace.