The Girls Know
The girls now know about Grandpa & Yia Yia's impending move. We haven't talked to Spencer, yet! We'll have to tell him what is going on, but for now he can be oblivious.
The girls' are so not happy with the news, which is the understatement of the year. I totally concur!
I really wish it would have been possible to delay that news. There is no benefit to them knowing this far in advance. To them a month is a very long time. It is going to be a long month and I have no idea how to make this any better.
We hear... "visit often". What does that mean? I suspect to each person it means something different.
Me being the logical realist, I look at the potential of visiting. While the emotional side says we'd love to make the trip to visit at least a few times a year. The logical side questions that possibility.
There are a couple prominent ways to make the journey with neither one making it feasible to "visit often". Either we drop $1500-$2000 to fly for a single round trip experience, plus any necessary lodging expenses, car rentals, and all the other daily necessities. Or we drive the 1500 miles, which sounds incredibly painful but actually isn't that much more painful than the hours and all the stops required to fly. But taking the trip by land adds travel days and surely you'd want to spend more time there than on the road.
Hypothetically say we saved back a $100/month to make these trips. Realistically, even if we could save this much monthly, it would take a good 2 1/2 years to have the funds. This isn't "visit often" to me. Well, and since we can’t just pull $100/month out of some black hole, the likelihood of that frequency is even in question. Thank goodness there is always credit, eh!?!?
Say we cut expenses, drove the miles and used more time. Carie can take off a chunk of time if necessary, but it is completely unpaid. I'm more limited (than Carie) with my vacation hours, but I can carry a small amount from one year to the next. So I save up my vacation hours and blow the large chunk every other year. We are still back to a 2 year cycle. This isn't "visit often" to me… but hey, we’ve cut it down from 2 ½ years to 2 years. Look at the bright side, right?
I have no idea what financial shape Carie's parents are in. They are in their early 60's. He is starting a new job, she is unemployed, they have a house to sell in 30 days, this is their 2nd house that they've "owned" in oh I’d guess 10 years, they've only lived in this house for 2 years, the market continues to suck, they are moving 1500 miles and who knows who is covering that tab, the list goes on and on.
Time wise, I'm making an assumption (maybe inappropriately so) that they won't have a bank of vacation hours at their disposal. Generally speaking it takes time to build up those vacation hours when you are starting a new career path.
Nothing is pointing to the possibility of "visit often" to me! It completely breaks my heart to see my kids hurt. It completely breaks my heart to know that my kids, the kids who think Grandpa & Yia Yia are the WORLD to them, won't be able to run to them and hug them with all their might.
It breaks my heart into a million pieces when I hear my girls say “I’ll miss Grandpa & Yia Yia” as we’ve heard randomly and they’ve only known since Friday afternoon.
While I'm grateful that they have one more month to be with them, it is extremely painful for me to watch my kids be with them. They were in Church with us yesterday I had to leave Church no less than 3 times to get control of myself.
I may be happy "for" them, but I'm also so damn pissed at them.
Damn I hate being a logical person, I really hate it!
The girls' are so not happy with the news, which is the understatement of the year. I totally concur!
I really wish it would have been possible to delay that news. There is no benefit to them knowing this far in advance. To them a month is a very long time. It is going to be a long month and I have no idea how to make this any better.
We hear... "visit often". What does that mean? I suspect to each person it means something different.
Me being the logical realist, I look at the potential of visiting. While the emotional side says we'd love to make the trip to visit at least a few times a year. The logical side questions that possibility.
There are a couple prominent ways to make the journey with neither one making it feasible to "visit often". Either we drop $1500-$2000 to fly for a single round trip experience, plus any necessary lodging expenses, car rentals, and all the other daily necessities. Or we drive the 1500 miles, which sounds incredibly painful but actually isn't that much more painful than the hours and all the stops required to fly. But taking the trip by land adds travel days and surely you'd want to spend more time there than on the road.
Hypothetically say we saved back a $100/month to make these trips. Realistically, even if we could save this much monthly, it would take a good 2 1/2 years to have the funds. This isn't "visit often" to me. Well, and since we can’t just pull $100/month out of some black hole, the likelihood of that frequency is even in question. Thank goodness there is always credit, eh!?!?
Say we cut expenses, drove the miles and used more time. Carie can take off a chunk of time if necessary, but it is completely unpaid. I'm more limited (than Carie) with my vacation hours, but I can carry a small amount from one year to the next. So I save up my vacation hours and blow the large chunk every other year. We are still back to a 2 year cycle. This isn't "visit often" to me… but hey, we’ve cut it down from 2 ½ years to 2 years. Look at the bright side, right?
I have no idea what financial shape Carie's parents are in. They are in their early 60's. He is starting a new job, she is unemployed, they have a house to sell in 30 days, this is their 2nd house that they've "owned" in oh I’d guess 10 years, they've only lived in this house for 2 years, the market continues to suck, they are moving 1500 miles and who knows who is covering that tab, the list goes on and on.
Time wise, I'm making an assumption (maybe inappropriately so) that they won't have a bank of vacation hours at their disposal. Generally speaking it takes time to build up those vacation hours when you are starting a new career path.
Nothing is pointing to the possibility of "visit often" to me! It completely breaks my heart to see my kids hurt. It completely breaks my heart to know that my kids, the kids who think Grandpa & Yia Yia are the WORLD to them, won't be able to run to them and hug them with all their might.
It breaks my heart into a million pieces when I hear my girls say “I’ll miss Grandpa & Yia Yia” as we’ve heard randomly and they’ve only known since Friday afternoon.
While I'm grateful that they have one more month to be with them, it is extremely painful for me to watch my kids be with them. They were in Church with us yesterday I had to leave Church no less than 3 times to get control of myself.
I may be happy "for" them, but I'm also so damn pissed at them.
Damn I hate being a logical person, I really hate it!
Labels: Family
posted by Sonya at 8:09 AM
2 Comments:
hmmmm...interesting...since neither of our families are close by...and we only see them once a year...i can really relate to what you are talking about...except for the fact that our kids don't really have strong relationships with either Cindy's parents or my mom...cuz they just don't really know them well. how sad. my mom is coming this weekend for a visit...her last one was about 21 months ago. let's hope we all survive! last visit, when i asked if she wanted to spend more time with them...she replied that any more time (i think she'd spent about 2 hours with them that trip) would be really irritating. oy.
sorry you are going through this with the kids, I know how important gran is to my 3 and she is the reason we would never consider moving to another city, I don't know what we would do if she decided to move
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