Reply to SIL wants us to "babysit" MIL more

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It sounds like this MiL doesn’t want to go do fun things.  That’s fine.  OP’s DH should make so time to just go sit with her for a few hours a week.  Maybe they talk about her doctors appointments.  Maybe they Google stalk people she went to HS with (my mom loves this!).  Maybe they watch Fox News together and he bites his tongue.  Maybe he makes her a lunch and straightens up.  In some ways, it helps to think of old people like toddlers.  Think of it was the equivalent of playing an hour straight of chutes and ladders.  Sometimes you just have to meet them where they are and do what they are comfortable with.  
I feel like he can give up a couple hours a month to do this.  My brothers trade off and go to my mom’s once or twice per week, and I call every week and talk for an hour or so about whatever.   That’s the job—just being present.[/quote]

Well stated. Our mom was pretty difficult, so I would take projects when we visited, e.g., 300-piece puzzles. She really couldn't solve it, but we would divide the pieces into piles, I'd slowly assemble, and occasionally push the remaining piece for a near completed section to her, and she would sometimes nail it. I'd also ask her about her childhood, even if I had heard the stories before my kids had not, and she enjoyed it. I'd also take the local paper and give her a section. She would page through it and I would intermittently read snippets of stories to her that I knew she would find of interest.

Always grateful that my husband and our children never complained or clock watched on these visits. [/quote]

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