We are planning our trip to Gatlinburg for my husband’s birthday. He was born on St. Patrick’s Day and is ALWAYS a big celebration. We are meeting our friends for a weekend of fun and no responsibilities. Momma is going to her sisters and to see her favorite niece. It is an extra two-hour drive each way for us, but she deserves to have a little fun too! We are all looking forward to it.

We have a trip planned in April to celebrate mom’s 78th birthday. We are going to Florida to visit my brother who is also having a birthday two days later. Mom is really looking forward to this trip. My cousin is coming with the three of us. I really hope everything well. My brother has been in bad health for awhile. I have explained to his wife over and over again that it does no good to share this information with mom. Mom gets upset and agitated when she thinks something is wrong and she will focus on the worst part of what is said. His wife will just not understand that this is not good for mom.

I don’t know how to deal with it. At home I can control most of it. We call my brother when we know she is at work and I monitor the calls that she is involved in. Mom has really missed my brother so I thought this trip would do her good. I am just hoping that between the three of us we can run interference if we have to.

Family members can either be a great help with AD patients or can do alot of harm really quickly. I try to explain that to give to much information to her is a bad thing. I also stress ‘the less words the better’ theory. Some will get it quickly and some are so focused on their own problems that they can’t seem to understand the harm they can do. Mom has been doing really good lately and I worry about what will happen.

She hasn’t seen my brother in over two years and she talks about him all the time (he’s the oldest), so I thought it would be fun to go and visit him. I have talked to both of them about it so I hope they will understand and make this a nice visit without any dramatics. We will see.

We are spending the first night of our vacation in Savannah, GA. My mom has always talked about going there. It’s about half way and we thought it would be a great stopping point. We have reservations at The Lady and Sons restaurant ladyandsons.com owned by Paula Deen. I haven’t traveled with mom very much. I hope she will be able to enjoy our vacation.

Remember to:

Appreciate the good. laugh at the crazy and deal with the rest.

I love you momma!