Changes in the last weeks.....

....are sleep related, Mom's been wishing to go to bed even while still light outside. Yesterday, Ash Wednesday, we went to the 5:30 evening Mass, got home about 6:40, and all Mom wanted to do was go to bed. She had an almost somnabulistic look on her face, one that I can call the 'zombie' look, and just went down the hallway so I could undress her and get her ready for bed. by 6:55 she was in bed and snoring, true it was a busy day with Masses and a trip to the Apple Store for updates and stuff. I got Mom up at about 9:30 for a bathroom stop, she slept through until about 6AM.

I've not really been looking forward to the time change this weekend, meaning more light later and less light earlier. We'll see how she handles it.

With regards to other things, Mom continues to exhibit wandering behaviors, the other day she was up and down from the chair to the front door almost constantly for three hours, classic repeating behaviors of dementia not only limited to verbal things.

This morning in the car on the way to Mass, an 8 minute journey, Mom was upset for some reason about black shoes, she must have asked about black shoes ten times in the car, then when we got into Church she asked if they had black shoes here...and when Father Jim showed up she commented about 'he has nice black shoes'.

Chewing and swallowing are now problems; Mom will eat bites of food like she's shovelling coal into a steam engine, chew and chew, and not swallow unless prompted to. All those 'manners' things that parents teach children are now unravelling for Mom, my new mantra at eating times is 'eat, chew, swallow'.