The not-so-well adjusted.

 It's been a week since I brought my Dad home with me.  It has been a lot of adjustment and we're still adjusting.  The kids have been playing musical bedrooms, we finally got my Dad set up with his own bed and space in the living room (he says he likes it, and I hope he's comfortable) and we're working on finding our new normal.  The biggest adjustment is trying to get Dad to realize that he's a member of the tribe and not just a guest.  I think he feels like a burden, but he's not.  In fact, he's probably the easiest-going person in our family who just goes with the flow and is happy to not be in the nursing facility.  There have been certain things that he has needed and certain things that we have had to do to make things easier for him in our home, there has been a lot of reorganizing things, and I've had to do quite a bit of shopping on his behalf.  I just want him to be as comfortable as possible, though.  He's 82 years old and he deserves to be comfortable.  He also deserves to eat whatever the hell he wants, in my opinion. 

I actually made it into the office meeting today, which was great.  While it didn't completely fill my "cup", it did give me a couple of extra spoons that I've put away for a rainy day.  It really says something when everyone kinda looks at you and you can just see the look on their face that says "Wow, she really does look exhausted."  Yep, that's me.  Exhausted.  As ridiculous as it sounds, I'm taking it easy for the foreseeable future and just ramping up as I can.  It is what it is and I would much rather spend the extra time with my Dad than running around like a chicken with my head cut off.  

This week's goal is to get Dad a wheelchair so we can go out on some adventures.  I would really love to take him to the zoo or to the aquarium or even over to one of the state parks and go for a walk.  Hell, going for a walk up and down the road would even be a good thing.  I just want to get him out of the house and I'm sure he would like that too.  While I'm positive that there isn't going to be a Disney trip in our future, I am absolutely positive that we can definitely take a walk at the sunken gardens in St. Pete. 

I really want to take him over to the casita, too, but there's no way he can walk that and I don't think a wheelchair would get us up there either, so there may just have to be a big reveal once it's done.  We are in the drywall phase of construction, so hopefully by the end of the week we can get to painting. Fingers crossed!

Things are looking up.   At least, I like to think they are.  Let's just hope we can keep things going up instead of the other way.  Fingers crossed, y'all! Fingers crossed!