RaisingDad

My friend Maloney told me that he and his wife recently went to see his mother-in-law at the nursing home where she now lives.      She was asleep when he got there, so he sat in the chair next to her bed, picked up the AARP Bulletin that had apparently put her to sleep, and started helping himself to a bowl of peanuts she had close by.      "Don't eat those," his wife told him.      "Why not?" he wanted to know.      "Because they're not yours," she answered.      "If I'm paying for them," he said, talking about the peanuts but meaning the nursing home, "then they must be mine."      "My logic was irrefutable," he told me later, although I'm pretty sure he doesn't know the meaning of the word "irrefutable." He must have heard it from Donald Trump.      Unfortunately, his mother-in-law woke up just as Maloney had...

My wife is trying to drive me crazy.      She denies it, of course, but I have proof.      Circumstantial proof, but proof nonetheless.      You see, whenever I'm looking for something, it's never there. Even when I know it's there, it's not there. Not too long ago I was looking for something in the pantry, but couldn't find it.      "It's in the pantry," my wife told me.      "I'm looking in the pantry," I told her back.      "It's there."      "I don't see it."      "On the right."      "It's not there."      "On the bottom shelf."      "I'm looking on the bottom shelf."      So, with an exaggerated display of irritation at having to have pulled herself away from The Bachelorette , she walked over to the pantry, reached in the...

Last night my wife reminded my father that he had a doctor's appointment at 9:30 today.      "I know, I know," he told her and waved her off.      This morning he was up and ready at 6 am.      SIX AM!      When I went downstairs to fix myself a cup of coffee, he told me, "I'm ready."      "For what?" I asked him.      "My doctor's appointment," he told me. "You forget everything... hee, hee."      There's no exchange of information my Dad takes part in that he can't turn into ridicule.      Meanwhile, my wife is busy getting breakfast ready, if a bit earlier than usual. Her back is to me, but I can see she's laughing to herself. The only time interaction with my Dad is amusing, is when he's interacting with someone else.      "I thought your...

Earlier today, my grandson  had been outside playing for hours.      When he finally came inside, he was very thirsty, so I served him a glass of orange juice. I have to buy two kinds of orange juice because my grandson likes it with pulp and my father likes it without. I can drink it either way, but that's neither here nor there. Well, maybe it's more there than it is here.      Later, he tells me: " Lito ," which is what he calls me "when I placed my glass of orange juice on the counter, Jaja" which is what he calls my father (I think it has something to do with Star Wars) "kept looking at it. I think he was going to drink it, so I kept my eye on him."      It was funny coming from a very serious five-year-old.        Raising My Father RaisingMyFather.blogspot.com jimduchene.blogspot.com  American Chimpanzee @JimDuchene  

When I retired I didn't think that I'd be spending the last few good years of my life taking care of a baby.      The baby I'm referring to, of course, is my father.      Of all my dependents and grand-dependents, my father is the one who's been the most work. There's not one thing we can give him that he won't complain about. There's not one thing we can offer to do for him that he won't take for granted. There's not one good deed that doesn't go unpunished when it comes to my Dad.      Today, my wife offered to make my father Bagel Bites for lunch. He refused.      "I don't like them," he told her.      "Sure, you like them," my wife told him.      "No, I don't."      "They're like mini pizzas."      "I know what they are."      "And you like pizza." ...