Skip to main content

So What About Mother's Day?

I was looking ahead on the calendar to our next visit and suddenly realized it fell during Mother's Day weekend. A flood of mixed emotions hit me immediately.
  • Mother's Day is not a deeply important holiday to me. It's nice and all but I've never had super big emotions about it. 
  • The girls can't know what it is yet and won't have any big feelings this year. But...years from now...will this be a uniquely difficult holiday? 
  • So if no one cares right now can I just kinda slide this one under the rug and avoid all the drama? Please, please, please someone confirm this is a real option!?!
  • Ugh, but what about the birth family. Is this a big deal for them? Are there major traditions? Will this be a minefield of potential hurt feelings? Is there a tactful way to call them up and say, so, on a scale of 1 to 10 how invested are you into making this a big rigamarole?
While thinking this through I did some googling and found that the local zoo does a special Mother's Day event with free admission for mothers. If I pay for the girls then grandma, aunt, and I can all get in free. Pretty good deal.

I called aunt and asked her if that was okay with her. She says they don't have anything big planned. Looks like that's a go.

Phew!

Maybe this will be our new Mother's Day tradition? We all meet up at a neutral location and stare at animals rather than discuss our feelings. Sounds good to me!!!

You know, as I look at scheduling these visits maybe I need to always connect them to an event. It's twice the bang if the visit can also be the celebration and, more importantly, it gives us something specific to be doing together. Let's see...we can aim for Valentine's Day in February, Kate's birthday in March, Easter in April, Mother's Day in May, hmmm, last day of school celebration in June? 4th of July...the fair in August... This will take some work but I bet I can find a holiday for every month.

Maybe that's the way to define our boundaries to grandma. Hey, we're only going to see you on holidays. But, the good news is that there are a LOT of  holidays!

Who doesn't love Groundhog's Day!?!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Chronic Lying Does to a Relationship

 We got through Christmas. It was fine. Jane held it together better than I thought she would. We went to an AirBnB for four days between Christmas and New Year. That was my gift to the rest of the family instead of presents. I gave Theo a break from everything--he did no meals or childcare. It was good. He got to rest and I took the kids to have fun experiences.  Now we're back to normal. The normal that is now our family. Everyone seems happy; content.  But then, two days ago, there was this tiny interaction between Jane and I that illustrates, for me, how broken our relationship is.  She's been complaining that her room is too hot. First, we closed the heat vent to her room. Then, I gave her several blankets so she has options for how warm she wants her bed to be. She has many types of pajamas and she can choose whatever she wants to wear. Her room is frigid compared to the rest of the house. Still, she complains. I think at this point it's just a thing with her--...
Post a Comment
Read more

Family Visit Success!

Last weekend we did a family visit that was a return to how we'd first begun doing them. Theo and I drove the girls down and stayed and hung out with the family the whole time. The visit was just 1.5 hours long. Aunt made the lovely suggestion that good-byes would happen in the house and not at the car. She even coached grandma to do them quickly. So, we did a quick but sincere good-bye then left. No drama with grandma climbing over seats or Jane wailing from her car seat. And it all worked! Girls were cheerful and chatty on the way home! No nightmares for Jane that night! Kate was even okay--one day of extreme clinginess but then she returned to usual level of attachment-bonding cling! I'm so incredibly relieved! Because what would I have done if this hadn't worked?? I could not bear the thought of telling them we were stopping visits completely not least of all because I truly don't believe that would be the right path, long term. But now I don't have to f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why She Pees...

 Last week the little sister, Kate, got in trouble for peeing herself and then lying about it. She's had a weak bladder her whole life and must be vigilant about going often or she has an accident. If she gets busy playing and nobody reminds her to go, it's inevitable.  I am annoyed at the hassle, but tolerant that it's a medical situation.  Then, tonight I realized Jane smelled like pee. There's no excuse. She can hold it for days if she wants to. She got in trouble (a cold shower to hose off her body). Then I realized her room stank and asked what was going on. She told me she'd been deliberately peeing herself each day for the last three days, "so that you'd smell it and think she did it and then she'd get in trouble."  She's a sociopath.  Who deliberately sits in their own pee for three days for the small thrill of getting their little sister yelled at?  Well, two can play at this manipulation fight. I called Kate into the room and then had...
Post a Comment
Read more