We had to pop into Home Depot the other day after picking up my Dad from his lecture series at the senior centre. And that’s when it dawned on me! Instead of leaving Dad in the car as we often now do, we simply put a shopping cart in his hands and he easily and happily “helped” us by pushing it around. He could lean on it when we just stood somewhere in an aisle and he could use it for stability as he was walking. Brilliant! I’m sure many others have already discovered this…..but for us it’s a game changer.
Of course, bringing my Dad into say… grocery stores, may not quite pan out the way I intend since he tends to want to buy all kinds of unnecessary groceries that he will never eat nor use. Still, it gives him an outing so we’ll take our chances. I might just surreptitiously remove items from the cart as we go.
Dad loved doing the “MMM” show on Sunday. Although I think he “gave it all away” at the afternoon rehearsal and was a little more subdued and not quite as on top of everything for the evening show because he was a bit tired. He was absolutely thrilled to see his new friend (the volunteer who comes to visit him once a week) at the show.
Now Dad is looking forward to Perils of Penzance, as are we all! I may have to give him copies of the music from Perils or give him some Christmas music already since he’s wanting to keep singing/practising something. I’m on it.
OH OH and since we also got him some hanging flowers for “his portion” of the back yard, he takes great delight in often showing us the “very pretty pink” flowers hanging on his fence. We take great delight in enjoying them with him every time he points them out. Easy to do.
In the meantime, another ingrown toenail has reared its ugly head. This time we’ve cut a notch into the centre of his toenail to force the nail to grow in that direction instead of outwards. We’ll see if it works – I’ll report back! But we’ll go to his doctor just to be safe.
Now with his toe hurting, we’re eyeing every shopping cart we see!
