Goldilocks or The Princess and the Pea

Agreed that your patience is exceptional! You tell the story well—it is funny, although I am sure the frustration is deep too. Kudos to you for finding the humor in it!

My dad’s recent fixation is the shaver I bring each time I visit. He wants razor blades instead. We go through a whole routine each time. Today I tried, “Well, you can go buy a replacement tomorrow, but right now this is better than nothing.” He said, “Barely.” I laughed. So did he.

I always like reading your posts. I'm sorry that you're going through this but I feel like we have the same mother and your posts hit home with me. LOL. My mom is super fussy as well. My thought is that this is their way of being in control. She'll tell you what she wants - then when she gets it, she will hyper focus on it or will want to change it. When my mom was living on her own she decided she wanted a hospital bed. I think in her mind she was thinking ahead of what she might need. After she got it she wanted a different mattress. Her neighbor had the exact mattress she wanted (mom claimed it was on a hospital bed). She gave me the info and of course it was too thick (which I suspected and we discussed). Mom thought it was wonderful. We ended up having to put chairs on either side because the mattress was higher than the rails. Of course within a couple of months she fell out of bed and ended up in the ER with a contusion. Oh, and the hospital bed came after we already bought her a new frame and mattress. She also went through four phones in three years. Now she's in MC and the behavior continues. She wanted new eyeglasses. She wanted single focus lenses this time, not progressive. Everyone tried to explain to her that she's been wearing progressive lenses for a very long time and it's not a good idea to make the change now. She was so adamant that we ordered her what she wanted. She received them and claimed they were exactly what she wanted. Fast forward a month, she decided that she didn't like them and wanted to get bi-focals (no convincing her to go back to progressive lenses). We arranged it and she got bi-focals and kept the other glasses. Fast forward another month and she's complaining about these glasses saying that there's a line on the lens (expected and explained when she ordered them). She now tells me every visit that she wants to go to a new eye doctor to get glasses. Then there's her underwear and socks that she's obsessed with. It gets too much at times and it's hard to not emotionally carry this in our own lives. My answer to your question is "yes, fussiness is part of AD"!

I just have to laugh as I read your post, not at you mind, but definitely with you as I have had a very similar experience with my mom who has AZ and LBD. Her Goldielocks issue is with her chair. We have been through 6 chairs to get the right one. She has gone back to her original chair after every one we've purchased and returned or simply put into a different room. She decided that one of the new chairs that she said at first, "hurt her back", is actually comfortable in the living room, but wasn't when it was in her bedroom. Then I switched her bedroom when my son moved out bcs she likes his room better, now she misses the view from her old window and insists her old room was bigger ( it is exactly the same size). But I put my foot down on this issue. Now she has decided that she wants her living room chair in her bdrm, but it won't fit through that door due to the angle of the hall. So I gave her one of my chairs bcs her old original chair hurts her back. Then later she wanted her old original chair back in her room, so we switched it. This lasted 2 weeks until we put my chair back in her room. Fast forward to Labor day weekend, guess what we did? You got it, we went chair shopping! She has had chair # 7 for a little over a week, just waiting for the inevitable! (Also, I gave away her old chair so she can't go back to wanting it!)

I appreciate this post so much. Our situation is meaningfully different, but it involves furniture discontent and a bed as a metaphor for feeling out of control and having no agency.

My mother has wanted to live alone since she was a little girl. I have all kinds of armchair psychologist theories about this, but it is objectively true. She LOVES her home, her yard, her furniture and her things. She worked hard and was responsible with her money her whole life. She kept meticulous care of her home.

When we moved her into our home 4 years ago, I was overwhelmed and felt so sad for her and so guilty. She was so gracious "When you tell me it's time, I trust you." I moved a fair amount of our furniture and stuff out of our house to move hers in. I couldnt deal with the logistics and the emotion of selling her stuff and at the time we did think she could live independently near us. In the end, her bedroom furniture ended up in our room because she has a king size bed. A full-size bed, one of her beds, fits in her suite we have for her. Not long after she came to live with us, it became very clear she couldnt live alone. Even now, 4 years later, she talks about getting her place and possibly going back to work.

She has been disgruntled intermittently about her bed. " She deserves a proper bed" and "I have several beds. Dont know where they got to." "Somebody is sleeping in my bed." Hint: it's me, her daughter. She passes by my room and it confuses her. She sees her furniture.

We have tried a mattress topper. It ? worked for a time. I considered a different headboard. Intuitively I know the bed is fine. She told me the other night, when I said we can get a different bed, but it would have to be the same size, she said "I really just need to get my own place."

Told her we would call a real estate agent in the morning.

Learning curve is steep.

"His obsession are amusing and amusingly frustrating." This is poetry.

Can I borrow the song idea?