3.5 GD is another who is seriously into the imaginary play. My S’s family gave her a Minnie Mouse costume for Christmas last year and she had no interest at the time, but the tide has turned. She dresses as Minnie, a firefighter, and other things now. D has got a Belle costume (the blue dress from the opening when she sings about books) and an Elsa costume for her that are waiting for Halloween and/or a treat in the upcoming month or so.
I don’t think I have announced that D is expecting a little boy in early September on this thread. Very excited because I have 3 granddaughters (one here, 2 in FL) and based on childcare costs, etc., I’m pretty sure both S & D will cap their families at 2 each. GS has been breech throughout the pregnancy, but D went to doc this morning and he has turned - big sigh of relief here!
I honestly have never seen any of my sibs or their spouses crawl on the floor with their gkids—just never have. At most the gkids will offer them some pretend food, which they pretend to enjoy, they will actually cook together, blow bubbles, go for walks, go shopping and for lots of car rides. Invariably they also get read to and take naps too.
I give the folks here who are crawling with gkids credit! I honestly can’t remember my folks ever crawling with any of us either!
I have GD on Mondays and I am always crawling on the floor with her. Just glad I can do it.
I think I will be also watching GD on Fridays starting next week. This should be a temporary situation until she starts full time daycare (probably in October).
I just read this on my instagram feed:
“Grandmother is a little bit of parent, a little bit of teacher, a little bit of best friend, and a little bit of partner in crime.”
It’s so true. My GD woukd often come to me to ask for something when she knows her parents would probably say no, like “a little bit of cookie.”
My Dad used to let my kids stay up late to watch TV and take them toy shopping for no good reason.
LOL I saw that on facebook too and loved it!! So true!
Older grandkid has a birthday coming up soon. My s and DIL have changed the date of her birthday party 4X! Wouldn’t be so bad if it didn’t require 2 cross country tickets for us!! And it turns out one of the dates it sounded like they had decided on was conflict with younger s’s (her uncle’s) schedule, but we weren’t included in the text response notifying them of that scheduling conflict. I was JUST about to pull the trigger on two very expensive tickets at a time that TBH wasn’t very convenient for us (but oh well) and fortunately I texted the itinerary to older s to confirm it was workable for them when he responded that that date might not work after all!! Whew. Soo… back to the drawing board to look at tix for the new date. Because the event is in a few weeks the fares are high and the seats are not very good, but at sometime after 1 am I bought the tickets . I am tired! But good news— I just beat a fare increase, so there’s that!
Your willingness to fly across the country multiple times a year is going to make a difference in your relationship with your grandchildren. My grandparents and aunts and uncles lived across the country and I didn’t know my grandparents or my cousins. Good thing all your grandchildren are in the same area.
Not gonna follow the kids. At least not at this point. And no guarantee younger s and family will stay there. It is a thought at some point as if we needed help we are very far away, but DH isn’t interested in moving at this point and one son made a comment that we’d expect them to be our social network Um… they’d expect us to be their babysitters!!
We know we will be staying put at least another 3 years, and I anticipate another 10 years. Future son-in-law is currently with us for another 2 or perhaps 3 sport seasons - and eventually landing a job where DD2 lives.
DD1/SIL/all of grandkids (4) are a flight away. At some point, may buy a condo and live there part of the year, or come and go more frequently. Will see if they remain there/purchase a home. First trip expected in Nov for 2 weeks or so - the baby will be 5 months, and all the other kids remember me and are always happy when I am on the phone or when I spend time with them. Lots of newness with the older two in ‘big kids school’ and the daycare for the younger two.
That’s exactly what our D said to us about five years ago, before we seriously considered moving. Now we babysit regularly. It’s a lot. I love our grandchildren dearly and enjoy our time with them, but at the same time it’s often exhausting. Between full days of babysitting and the time needed in between to clean the house, do laundry, prep meals, research and buy new books and toys, etc., there’s not much down time.
Sometimes kids have unrealistic expectations. DD1 and family, until last month, lived 100 miles from us, and it was always much easier for us to go to their house where all the kids’ stuff was and childproof. DD1 had unrealistic expectations, like I was supposed to roll out the red carpet and accommodate every whim like a full service hotel. We would host them for a full day when they wanted to attend something special where we live, but otherwise, we were at their place, as well as helping them out for some of their events, including parents out of town for overnight/weekend. I just held firm to my limitations.
I have heard grandparents purposely move further away because they don’t want to be their grandchildren’s regular babysitters. I think it’s good to sit boundaries on both sides.
Both of my kids live very close by me. I don’t expect them to include ne in their social lives, and I am only a supplement as a babysitter. D1 will often have her regular sitter around when I am on duty while they are away. It’s only recently that I take GD out by myself. I think if I had a partner, it would be easier for me to babysit without outside help. D1 said it takes a village to take care of “tutu,” “peanut,” “goose.” GD’s various nick names.
For DH and me, it was VERY helpful that we lead our own lives AWAY from both sets of parents - far out of state (parents lived 100 miles from each other, and if we were there over Christmas, it was driving Christmas morning to the other set of parents…parental expectations). It just so happens that DH’s job opportunity out of college was far out of state, and where I could also settle in with my career. Our parents kind of had the thinking that we would need to circle our lives around theirs, and both were in small towns. We had our first child 15 years after our marriage, and we have the youngest grandchildren on both sides of our family. DDs benefited from knowing the 3 grandparents (my dad died when DD1 was 1 year old).
I coordinate with DD1 on visits and what they want done with the Gkids. I make it a positive experience with our visits and involvement.
I have a friend who is declining in health/mobility is declining too, and she made a ‘last’ big trip picking up all expenses on the 9 young adult grandkids - to Hawaii (months before the recent fire), where she was able to take them to all the places her DH and she enjoyed going to. A great memory for them all to have. Also bonding the cousins too.
We moved after retirement (we were planning to anyway) and purposely chose to live near D,SIL and GD (S is not settled yet). We also love the city they/we live in. Living far away from family when our own kids were growing up was tough. It was one of the main reasons I ended up leaving my career and I didn’t want my D in that position.
It’s worked out well for us. We agreed to care for GD 1 day a week as well as on occasions when D and SIL want to go out without her or are going to weddings or other events. It’s worked out well for us - I agree with @oldfort - setting boundaries is important. We will have GD 2 days a week soon but that is a temporary situation. We have always reserved the right to travel when we want.
Both parties are considerate with each others time. Although we do see D and family often we do not rely on them for our social life.
We moved a couple of hours from our previous home. For lots of reasons, including the time consuming new home construction and subsequent corrections/new work, the pandemic, and our tendency to be homebodies, we have not made new friends here. It seems harder once you’re retired unless you have a hobby that involves social activities.
We don’t share the typical interests of many in our area in college football, or a particular version of religion and politics. We may join the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at a local university once the house is more settled.
Even when you stay in the same place for your entire married life, it can be tough to maintain relationships and make new connections. People move away, friendships that were based on kids often fall by the wayside when the kids are grown, friends pass away, and sometimes your world view evolves and you find that others are stuck in a past you don’t care to revisit.
H and I are fortunate that our kids live nearby, and we have no desire to move. But we do find that our social circle is much smaller than it once was. Good thing we’re both pretty introverted. We are trying new things in an effort to keep busy, though. That may or may not lend itself to new social connections.
Um… they’d expect us to be their babysitters!!
