Sundowning

Crocheting is addicting.

Piper kept me entertained as I crocheted with her knock-knock jokes.

"Mom?"  she asks.
"What, Piper?"
"Dada dobo dew a dop dop abob a papa."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah." she says.  "Nah-nah?"
"Who's there?"
"Ooooh."
"Oh, funny!"  

It's the same conversation all day, every day, with a few changes to her long sentence.  Sometimes it's more like, "Ah ba da baba ooh a bog daddy a boo."

She says a lot without saying anything at all.

Yesterday, the kids were good and entertained themselves (while I crocheted) until about 4pm, when they all started driving me up the wall.  Piper started screaming for food.  Tucker started bawling because Piper was stealing his trains.  Avery was running wildly around the house, wearing Chet's hat slung low over her face, pretending to be a robber.  Milo was screaming from the swing, wanting to be held.  I work in a dementia unit and we call this sundowning.  All is quiet on the unit until about 3:30pm, when they all start to get agitated, throwing things, calling out, and standing up from their wheelchairs, convinced that they are 25 years old and that they know how to walk.  It lasts until they all go to bed, except for the few that like to get up out of bed at 10pm, thinking it's morning.  Sundowning is a term that usually only applies to those with mental illness/dementia but I'm convinced that we all sundown.

It's freezing outside, a negative 11 degrees to be exact, and the kids are going stir crazy.  Avery and Tucker are playing their favorite game, Hide From Piper.  Piper saunters into a room, in her own little world, and Avery and Tucker shriek and run into another room and hide.  About twenty minutes later, Piper walks into the room they're hiding in and they shriek and yell and scream, "Hide!  Here she comes!  Help!  Yikes!"  Piper remains oblivious to the fact that they are hiding from her.  Before Hide From Piper, they were playing Hide and Seek.  They would take turns counting to ten, while the other player hid in the tent.  The person who was It would look everywhere first, then look in the tent and act surprised to find them there.

This may be a long day.  It's only 8:30am and they are running out of fun things to do.