I have a teacher story!!

So, I have a small reading group that I work with every day. 3 boys, 1 girl. Two of the boys are African-American, the girl and the other boy are white. Last week, the boys picked the book, so this week, my girl picked the book. She thought she was picking a book about baseball based on the cover, but it ended up being about baseball and the desegregation of a rural school in 1959. So today, we were reviewing the book and at one point, we were talking about the racism in the book. E, my girl, said something about it being dumb and started to say, B is black and we..." when J, the white kid, says, "You can't say that! You can't someone's black!" So, seeing a teachable moment, we broke from the book review and I said, "She can say that. B is black, just like we're white. We can't discount someone's race or ethnicity; it's a large part of who we are and what experiences we have in life. B and O will have different experiences from us because we're white and they're black, just like B and you will have different experiences from E and me because you're boys and we're girls." At which point B says, "Yeah. Tell me about it. There are some weird things going on with my body right now."

I just kind of blinked at him a moment and said, "Yep. We all go through that. So. Where did we see racism in the book?"

High-larious.

LOL

giggle

I adore you Aimee. You are meant to be doing this.

haha.

Thanks, honey. It feels really good to be doing it.

. I just don't have any experience with what would be comforting/helping to an old lady whose mind is playing evil tricks on her. I fear that just visiting wouldn't be much help - she's aware of what's going on, she's an intellectual and a kickass Professor Emerita, and we all know it's heartbreaking and probably not gonna get any better.

Shir, one of the things I have learned about caring for dementia patients is that while they lose many cognitive functions over the course of their illness, they hold on to their senses of humor and their appreciation of music. In many instances, when we cannot get through to a person with anything else, the music of their youth will get through to them. Hil is right about not contradicting whatever they are talking about, no matter how confused they are. It is much more useful to gently lead them away from the topic. An example of that is when K, a lady I used to work with, would say, "I just don't understand why my mom isn't here to take care of me." Instead of telling her that her mother had died years ago, I would tell her that her mom wanted very much to take care of her but just could not be here right now, and that is why I am here, to take care of her for her mom. And then I would ask her about her mother, what they liked to do together, what music they liked, etc. It sounds as though your Grandmother of the Heart is not quite at that stage yet, so I don't know if that will help much.

Typo, thanks for explaining that.

Aims, you really do have the right mindset.

Thanks, all. It helps, though this morning my mom decided to reschedule our visit to next week. She really doesn't want to see her in this state.

Aims, that's a wonderful story.

Man, I know I'm feeling emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed when the cat barfing makes me almost cry. Granted, he barfed on the patio-door slider, which is possibly the most difficult thing to clean, but still.

He's been barfy the last few days, I don't know why. He doesn't seem to be sick; he's acting like his normal self, everything's normal, he's just throwing up.

I'm the one who's sick. I need someone to clean up after me. My house is a pit and I don't have the energy or will to clean it.