he's baaaaaaaaack!

Last night, I got a good swift kick in the butt. My stern, obstinate, opinionated, strong willed dad was at my house. It kind of shocked me, and I had to retreat to gather myself. You see, he got up from watching the ball game to use the bathroom, and then went into his room. Lights off, quiet...
M - Dad, are you in bed for the night?
D - yes
M- I have your pills for you.
D - What pills?
M - Your night pills - as I went in to give them to him. He sat up and I noticed he had on a pair of boxers, the only pair he has.
M - Do you have underwear on under your shorts? (aka depends)
D - No
M - You have to put these on under your shorts ( as I hand them to him)
D - I do NOT have to put those on. (He lays back down and rolls to his side toward the wall.)

This is when I left his room. What the heck? Deep breath.

M - Dad, you have to put these on.
D - I do NOT have to put these on.
M - Trust me dad, you have to. You wear them every day and every night to bed.
D - I do NOT wear them. Why do you want me to wear them?
M - Sometimes in the night, you leak.
D - I do NOT leak. Turn my light off.
M - No. You can turn off your light after you put these on.
D - fine fine fine fine fine

I left the room. Tears - I am the worst daughter in the world. I can't even get him to do this simple thing. I stink at this. What was I supposed to do? Hog tie him and put them on him? All I could think of was, I am going to have a huge mess in the morning. I don't have time for that in the morning! I went to bed about 9:45 wanting to just forget this incident, but my mind was racing and I couldn't sleep. About 12, I got up and went and laid on the couch...I guess I fell asleep because at 3:15 am I hear the pitter patter of daddy feet. D -Where's the light? M -whatcha doing up so early? D - It's not early, it's time to get up. M -It's 3:15 am! D -For crying out loud... I thought it was a lot later than that! He did go back to bed. I did fall back asleep. There were no extra messes in the morning. I guess I worry too much.

And today was a good day. He's been getting up earlier and earlier this past week, so I put black cardboard on his windows behind his blinds. It is really dark in there! The AZ sun won't wake him next time!

The new caregiver started on Monday. She seems very willing to learn and appears to be a genuinely nice woman. She gets brownie points for getting my dad to play some games... checkers, cards, connect four, jenga. Hope it continues to be a good thing for us all.