Tag: family

After Thanksgiving

Boris nearly missed his flight: there was a traffic jam at the ORD entrance, and it took Uber 50 minutes to get to the terminal. I believe the better strategy would be to Uber to Cumberland and take the L to ORD. But it is what it is. I am sad about such a stressful ending to a very good week we had.

As it always happens, I have more things not done than done, just because I have all holiday things, plus work, plus the conference, plus our NFP, plus conferences where I submitted some proposals. Plus twenty different professional projects I want to start. Oh, and plus, it became sharply cold and my body didn’t have enough time to adjust.

Nevertheless, we had a very good time together and did many things around the house. Boris repaired a bookcase that started to fall apart after I returned from my last trip, and then he moved bookcases around as we planned several months ago but never did. We took down the flower baskets, covered all the balcony furniture for winter, and put up Christmas decorations.
I feared that because of how busy I was this year, I wouldn’t feel as joyful decorating the house as I usually feel, but this fear was unfounded. Everything except for the tree is up, and Christmas is in the air 🙂

Thanksgiving

I never know what to write about Thanksgiving. We made it :). Actually, the cooking time was the least effort I remember. It took me more time cleaning up, doing the dishes, and packing the food to go, but I am done with that, or with most of that. Boris helped me a lot (probably more than ever), and I am also very thankful for that. I am tired, but also, since Boris and I were chatting all the time while I was cooking and he was helping, I got a lot of new Postgres ideas that I want to try 🙂

I know I am hopeless:)

My son-in-law said I have a secret extra day of the week – I wish!!!

One thing we always have for Thanksgiving are pies from Vanille:)

Mom

A quick review of the past couple of weeks. Health-wise, she is doing great. I took her to her doctor two weeks ago (that was the hospital visit follow-up), and he was really impressed. He said that unless there are any concerns, he does not need to see her until June. At the same time, after we reported everything that happened to my mom, he looked at me and said: you realize that that’s just the beginning? Make sure to call her every morning to check that everything is alright.

I understand that, and that was one of the reasons I was still looking for a caregiver closer to my mom’s house. The one who started to visit my mom before I went on my trip, turned out to be great. Mom really likes her, and I asked her to meet with my mom at least once a week even if there are no specific needs. It is also great that she can take my mom to places where my help is not really needed, like the nail salon. I even asked her to take my mom to the blood test. To be honest, this small help frees up a lot of my work time, and that’s the primary reason I feel like I am becoming a human being again.

We ran out of the nurses’ visits, which was not so bad because there were objectively no reasons for them and because my mom insisted on somebody being there during the visits, even though the nurse spoke Russian. The insurance won’t cover it anymore; as I said, it’s good enough for now.

One of the things the nurse arranged was a social worker’s visit. Mom had this weird idea that if she would admit she needed help, I would send her to the nursing home, so she always said that she didn’t need any help. The social worker came anyway, and she assigned a Russian-speaking case manager for Mom. This case manager called me a week later (not three weeks later, as we were told). I had to take off work again, but at least I got some valuable information, especially regarding the subsidized housing. Now that I have learned how it works, I am not surprised that we are experiencing a housing crisis. Anyway, I contacted both subsidized housing and filled in applications. One was accepted, and another was returned, and we still need to fix the issues and turn it back. I don’t know what to make out of the fact that two houses have entirely different applications!

For a reason unknown to me, my mom believes that she will be placed in a room “with somebody else,” and she still thinks that it’s “a nursing home.” I hope she will realize that this housing is much better than where she lives now and, more importantly, that she will have Russian-speaking neighbors. To be honest, that’s the sole reason I want her to move into one of these buildings, and if I could pay the full price for her to live there, I would be happy to do so!

In addition, the case manager performed a memory evaluation for my mom, and since I know what it should look like, I realized that she did a very basic one. I guess that anything better than complete dementia is considered to be “ok” at this age. A side note: my mom got very upset with this evaluation and said that she is not a mad old lady :), which is very true!

I think those are all updates for now!

What Are Children For? A Book Review

I finished this book a while ago and didn’t give it any rating. I finally gave it three stars, but it’s not like “the book was worse than I anticipated.” I learned about this book from the Point Magazine newsletter – they ran several articles on that topic before the book was out, and it sounded interesting enough for me to invest in reading rather than listening :). As I said, I finished it a while ago, and still can’t formulate my opinion about it.

Maybe it would be better just to summarize my view on the subject: I do not understand what it is there to argue about. Some people want children (I was thinking about having children as the best thing that will eventually happen in my life since I was fifteen). Some people do not want children. Some people change their minds as life goes on. Some people want to have just one child, some want to have many and enjoy having many. Never in my life could I understand what’s the argument. As long as I can remember, I have always believed that all children should be wanted and that a woman should have as many or as few children as she is willing to have, including zero. End of story. End of argument. No judgment.

***

The authors, Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, performed extensive research on the history of the subject, and I learned many new facts about how the choice of not having children was viewed throughout human history. In addition, they reviewed multiple literary works on that topic. Although I really appreciate them being so thorough, it felt almost “too much” with lots of repetitions. A disturbing part was the one where they cited responses to their survey. Some of the survey participants said that they would have children only if they were able to provide them with the same opportunities as they had as children, “including private tennis lessons.” (yes, that was one of the responses; I am not making it up!)

Again and again, I do not get why there should be any “whys” at all. Do some people want to make a good impression on others, or are they trying to fool themselves? I don’t know. There is a whole chapter about people who “do not want to bring children into this world when we have a global climate crisis.” It sounds so strange to me and so illogical.

In addition, again and again, I hear all the arguments about “you can’t have it all.” And when I read through some of the detailed explanations, I can see what these working mothers mean. One says: “Either I am making a Halloween costume for my child, or I am attending a meeting; I can’t do both simultaneously.” That makes me wonder, since when you are a bad mother if you do not hand-make a Halloween costume for your child? For several years, we had an agreement that I would hand-make a costume for only one of my three children, and the other two would have to either store-bought costumes or we would use some props we found at home. And if I ever emotionally scarred my children, it was for reasons other than not making Halloween costumes. (It’s also worth mentioning that I love making costumes, and it won’t be the case I won’t be making any! I think that too many working mothers impose unrealistic expectations on themselves regarding what is required from the perfect parent. And by the way, if you can’t be a mother for one kid and work, does it mean that you can’t be a good mother for two kids because each of them will only have half of you. And what if you have five?! It does not make sense :). Time is not additive 🙂

… I asked Anna whether she indeed thinks that motherhood affects women’s careers. She said: Oh, a hundred percent! I asked her: do you really think you would be making more money if you wouldn’t have kids? And she said: no, I would make less! Which is how I feel 🙂

Alternative opinions are welcome!

A Night At The Museum

For Nadia’s seventh birthday, I gave her a Dozing with Dinos—a sleepover in the Field Museum. As anyone can imagine, I was equally excited to spend a night at the Field and wonder around all the exhibits as long as I wanted to.

It turned out that there was not that much time for free-roaming because the whole night was full of activities: we met with the scientists, saw the animals skinning in the lab, identified different smells and sounds, saw a 3-D movie about the T-Rex and did a scary storytime.

Our sleeping area was in the Great Dinosaur Hall, and I think it was the best place, although Nadia said that sleeping by the Sue T-Rex would be better (when I was ordering this package, there were no places by Sue available, but maybe next time!)

We packed our things in the morning, left them in the locker, and went for breakfast. The only thing that could have been done better was the food provided as a part of the package or rather some inaccurate information about it.
They said there would be a late-night snack, but they had different bags of chips, tea, and hot chocolate. They also said there would be a continental breakfast, but it was just an apple, a banana, and one mini muffin (plus juice/milk/tea/coffee). Thankfully, the museum bistro was open at 7-30 AM, so we didn’t go hungry!
By 9 AM, Anna and Kira came to the museum. I thought we would stick around for an hour or two at a maximum, but we stayed there for more than four more hours! It’s the longest time I ever spent in any museum!

In the evening, when we all set for dinner, Nadia said that the best thing about that day was the whole day, and the worst thing was that it came to the end 🙂

Oh, and one fun fact: according to my Health app, I climbed 25 flights of started on Friday, and 25 on Saturday!

Mom’s Updates

Yesterday, the physical therapist who comes weekly to work with my mom graduated her to walking outside independently. He said that she made significant progress, which is great and remarkable. I know that my mom worked hard and performed all of the exercises twice a day.

I thought that on this note, she would send everyone away and would prefer to walk on her own all the time, but thankfully, she was cautious enough to say she would still need somebody for longer walks next week. I am still unsure how I will feel leaving Chicago for two weeks, but we have another week to evaluate the situation.

About Mom, Life, And Other Random Thoughts

Mom wants her freedom, and it’s scary. I understand how she feels, and most likely, if I were in her place, I would feel the same way. I also understand that she can’t really process any new concepts, and I remember what the doctors in the hospital told me: at the end of the day, you do what you can do. I talked to one more potential caregiver last week, and I was trying to talk to my mom about bringing in one more person when I was away, but she was turning the conversation into her usual spiral, no matter where it would start and no matter how hard I tried.

Today, I took her to the matinee concert at the CSO, and she was upset, I am not sure with what, and then she didn’t like anything at the concert, starting with the first piece that was performed and ending with Christoph Eschenbach not wearing a bowtie. I am trying to distance myself from such situations, but at the same time, I always start to worry whether I am moving in the same direction.

I know that I have already started to forget words, and for the past two years, I have been trying to record all occurrences of forgotten words. I believe it was once in two months two years ago, then – once a month, and now almost weekly. The funny thing is that most of my forgotten words are food-related:). The rest are names of people (not the people I knew in the past, but celebrities) and names of places. Boris has nothing of it, and he remembers the names of my former co-workers better than I.

***

Another topic my mom brings up frequently is a statement that she feels sorry for me because although I am an accomplished professional, I didn’t have “magical moments” in my life. I know exactly what she means because she often speaks with pride about some super weird relationships she had, when a guy from her work invited her to a theater or a concert once a month, and sometimes, they went to one of the imperial parks around Saint-Petersburg (actually, Leningrad at that time). She keeps saying that “these days, nobody can even imagine such relationships when there was nothing except for talking.” According to her, the best and most magical part of this relationship was that there was no kissing, no intimacy. They would go out once a month, and he would record tapes for her, and that was it. I can’t imagine why not having something like this in my life makes me “unhappy.” I honestly and truly believe that my life is as close to a fairy tale as possible, and the number of magical events that happened to me is way above the average :). Boris threw a dozen hypotheses, trying to explain what was behind this statement and what kind of reasoning could lead to this conclusion.

I might make a separate post about these hypotheses because I believe there could be some historical reasons for that.

Mom’s Updates

It has been a week since I posted the last update about my mom. In short, things are fine, although there are still many unknowns.

A PT is coming once a week (the original order was twice a week, but Medicaid only covers one). Mom is doing the exercises twice a day and is making good progress. She is still not allowed to go outside on her own, but a PT said that he hopes to get her to the level when she will be able to walk without a walker and without a cane, but it will take weeks. I hired a person to walk with her for an hour once a day, and she was fine with it for the first two days. On Sunday, she made a scene accusing me of “making decisions for her without consulting her,” and we had a pretty ugly conversation. She refused to recall that I asked her first and that she agreed

A Russian-speaking nurse will be coming once a week.We had a first visit with her on Monday, and she ordered a new blood pressure monitor and a wearable so that mom could push a button if she falls.

Also, the nurse said that she would put a request for home help, and that’s where my mom exploded again. We had another ugly conversation, and finally, I figured out what it was about. For some reason, my mom got into her head this idea that “I want to send her to a senior home” (she even thought about it when I was trying to sign her up for subsidized housing). So now it’s a new development: she got an idea that when I offer to hire help or when I want to request a social worker for her, I am doing it to collect the evidence that she can’t live on her own and should be placed into a senior home, so pretty much the opposite of what we are trying to do.

The more I think about it, the more it feels like that cynical approach to life that I talked about in one of my recent posts. She has a deep belief that “everyone is evil,” and everyone thinks only about their own well-being, not their neighbor. It’s extremely unsettling (I do not know how she can say that “she respects me” and “I am the best daughter ever.”

I still have no idea how to provide coverage for the time I will be away, not even in terms of finding additional help but in terms of convincing her to accept that help. I think that at some point I will have to let it go as PT doctors at the hospital told me.

Igor’s Birthday

Today was Igor’s birthday, and obviously because of the situation with my mom, our minds were not 100% on the celebration. I am glad that mom was well enough to go to the Chayhana cafe. I can’t judge their Middle asian food, but Russian dishes exceeded expectations (desserts could be better though).

it was not an easy year for Igor, and I am glad that he feels good about where he is now. Proud of his accomplishments and of his personal growth 🙂

All Updates

A side note: I credit myself for two responsible actions. First, when I got a call that my mom fell and was taken to the hospital, I ate before rushing there. And second, when she was already home on Saturday, I asked Igor to stay with her for an extra hour and went to the beach because I knew it was my last opportunity of the season. I said thank you to the lake, to the warm clean water, and to that amazing summer.

Those were the last two responsible actions on my part. Although the second CT scan didn’t show any negative dynamics, the doctor still didn’t want to let my mom go back home. All the doctors kept telling me about horrible things that could happen if my mom fell one more time and insisted she had to be supervised 24/7 if we wanted to take her home. Mom didn’t want to be supervised, she didn’t want to make any changes in her routine, and she repeatedly said that she better die than like “like that.”

It was great that Anna could come over and stay until Tuesday afternoon. Mom was thrilled to see her, and I could take breaks and even do some work. However, we still struggled to make mom use assistive devices and exercise caution.

Taking a shower using the bench was the hardest, and I almost yelled at her. She kept saying that she was not used to washing herself sitting, and it was inconvenient. But then, I came up with a great strategic idea. Mom often states that I don’t remember how it is to live without a shower at home while she lived like this and had to go to the public baths once a week. In fact, I do remember: I had to go to public baths when I was in summer camps and when we stayed in the countryside in summer. So when she repeated that “she never washed herself in a sitting position, I said: Wait, what about the public baths? Didn’t you sit on a bench then? And this was a trigger. She said yes, and you had to wash the bench before sitting on it!

Then she got into the shower as I instructed her, and then I saw through the door crack that she was washing herself while sitting, and then she got out of the bathtub in a safe way. I said: good job, mom! You learned a new skill! For that she replied: there is nothing new in it!

By some miracle which I am not going to question, he got at-home physical therapy twice a week and the nurse’s visits once a week. She already had one PT session and did the exercises once on her own, so the progress is outstanding.

I am planning to go to the office for tomorrow afternoon.