Saturday, May 5, 2007
Off to Grandma's Houae
Posted in Family Doings
Since we moved closer, my mother-in-law has been picking up the children, one or two at a time, and taking them to her house for a week. This has generally worked well, but there have been problems.
What's working well:
- The kids have a chance to meet the relatives that live close to Grandma S and get to know her much better.
- The kids are exposed to all kinds of strangers and bragged about, something every child should have to endure from time to time.
- Last year, our oldest daughter spent a day at her cousin's work with her. Loved the cousin, loved the horses, but she came home talking about perhaps a future teaching high school literature rather than working with horses.
What's not working so well:
- Grandma S lives way out in the countryside. There are no dogs or other kids or anyone to distract a lonesome child from the vast nothingness. I know--it's a good thing and develops character and all that, but it doesn't make it any easier for a tender-hearted grandma to hear "I'm bored and lonely" often.
- Grandma S is a snowbird that spends her winters in Texas and her summers in Indiana. She picked up her first set of children on her way to open her summer home for the season. She wasn't really prepared to spend time with kids as she had many legal, accountant and medical appointments already made and waiting for her. That first set of kids spent more time sitting in waiting rooms than with her.
- Grandma S has health problems all of a sudden, suffering three colds in a row with just a brief recovery time between, so very few visits to relatives have been taking place this year.
- Grandma S does not like to make the drive from her house to ours alone, so transport has to wait upon friends that can accompany her. That's fine for when the two older girls took the youngest with them, not so fine for the next-to-youngest that needs to come home NOW because she is miserable!
- Grandma S, despite raising three boys as a single, working mom, has great difficulty providing the necessary oversight for our teenage son. She wants to spoil him (that's what Grandmas are for, she says) but eating McDonalds three meals a day and renting four R-rated movies a day just isn't her style; nor is it what we allow.
- Grandma S likes to "tease" our children about things we do differently than she did. For example, why our oldest girl isn't dating yet. "You'd better get your bedroom cleaned up! That's the first thing a date will want to see, you know!" Ahem.
We are still working out the bugs, and I'm not at all sure how it will all work out in the end. But it's a long road, this parenting thing.
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Tuesday, May 8, 2007 - compulsively answering every post
 Posted by still Kim
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no wonder I don't get any real work done, having to reply to each post. LOL!
Can shorter trips and tag-teaming the children level out the "I'm bored" and loneliness? How far is Grandma?
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Thursday, May 24, 2007 - Untitled Comment
