Personal care dressing

Personal Care

Mum loved going to have her nails done at the local nail shop, where she had a manicure and pedicure regularly, until I could no longer afford it.

Toe nails best to go to podiatrist

Take her to dentist every six months and organise transport to collect you both and take you home. Too hard going on public transport and expensive taxis.

Getting her up in the mornings

She used to call me when I was a little girl ‘lazy good for nothing’, well it’s pay-back time so I call her that now or ‘sleeping beauty’ when I get up every day. She roars with laughter.

Clothes

I do my best to make sure she always looks her best as if you look good, you feel good.

Put away their good jewellery for safe keeping, as they lose things.

Have to check her handbag everyday as she fills it with fruit, underwear, biscuits, cakes, tissues.

I bought from Kmart target black leggings with elastic waist and donated to Vinnies all her trousers with zips. Too hard to dress her.

I usually put her in her pyjamas around 5.30pm.

Doesn’t matter if she goes to bed in day clothes.

She cannot remember how to put her makeup on.

She cannot dress herself if she does she has them all muddled up, puts them on back to front, on top of her pyjamas, all mixed up.

Need to choose their clothes and help dress them

Dressing her, Mum would often complain “The sleeves are too long”. I reply “What’s the problem you are still growing aren’t you ?”

“I’m cold” She complains when I change her clothes " I reply, well you just have to wait, I cannot do this any faster"

Hawaiian Fridays

I dressed mum up every Friday in a Hawaiian shirt and silly hat. I collect silly hats and Hawaiian Shirts and have over 50 of each. They always make me happy. Who cares if people laugh with me or at me. When I worked in the corporate world I wore them every Friday, since my beloved Dad was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2000. I call this my happy cupboard. When I worked with my favourite boss Adrian at MLC, I had a mirrored disco ball above my desk and we had Hawaiian Disco Fridays and I would play my disco music, spin my disco ball and get the the team to do YMCA at their desks.

So decided after being forced to quit my career December 2014 due to a horrible boss the Friday before Christmas, due to Mum’s dementia, I was absolutely devastated at the time. I would dress up Mum instead and continue my tradition of Hawaiian Fridays and posting pictures up every Friday on Facebook. She would go out with Holdsworth our local seniors community group on Fridays and they would pick her up in the local community bus. They would all roar with laughter when they saw her in a different outfit every week. She never wore the same outfit on Fridays. She loved wearing my many crazy outfits, including the following. Laughter is the best medicine.

I call it adult doll dressing, I love to choose her clothes n costume jewellery and make sure she always looks her best.

I tell her “you have your own personal stylist and hairdresser, aren’t you lucky?”