Visit With Sam's Birth-Grandmother

So Sam’s grandmother FINALLY made it here.

She called Tuesday afternoon and left a message on our answering machine to let us know she would arrive Wednesday evening. The visit went well. Although it started with some frustration and some challenges. We have a Mazda Tribute which is a baby SUV (it’s a “pretty” Ford Escape really), with the car seats in it only holds us so we rented a mini-van for her visit and told her we would pick her up at the bus station at 5:15. Daniel brought the mini-van, a Chevy Uplander, home at 4:30 and preceded to put the car seats in. At 5:00 totally frustrated he was still working on it. Stupid, stupid, mini-van – we will NEVER buy an Uplander (not that it was high on our list anyways). So we were late to the bus station; I was so worried that “Nana” would think we had abandoned her. In the end we weren’t all that late (ended up being less then 5 minutes) and she was very understanding. We picked her up and went to dinner.

Sam was really happy to see her – by the end of her less than 24 hr. stay he was even saying her name – impressive considering he has a spoken vocabulary of less then 10 words although we do show him her picture almost daily and talk about her. On Thursday we picked her up at the hotel and went to Sears for pictures. Pictures went well although I’m really tired of teenagers, who know nothing about tiny kids, being responsible for picture taking – we are done with Sears photo forever (a number of other problems I won’t go into now have led to this decision)! We had lunch and then took the kids to an indoor park and for a little shopping. Sam wasn’t on his best behavior but he wasn’t on his worst either which was good. She got a somewhat accurate picture of his life and how he was doing (i.e. really well). He had a couple of meltdowns especially on Thursday where we kept him up about 2 hours past his usual nap time (hey it’s not every day he’s got to spend with her) but that’s par for the course with him.

Daniel and I did all right I think. I think I had more of a challenge to deal with than Daniel although it all could have been in my head. It seemed to me that Sam deferred a little to Nana when he needed something rather than me (and I pouted a little internally about that) but as I said it could just have been me being over sensitive. Kamryn was a handful. Nana tried to chat with Kamryn but her attention was obviously on Sam and poor little Kamryn was just screaming “NOTICE ME!” for most of the visit. This is a big problem we’ve been dealing with this month so this visit was really ill-timed in relation to that but it couldn’t really be helped. Kamryn gets PLENTY of attention but like most older siblings I’m guessing she doesn’t see it that way.

Sam parted from Nana very well, again considering he had to have been exhausted, and he ate a good dinner and slept well last night. The way we planned things inadvertently kept us on the road and away from home. Nana was never at our house which in hindsight was a good thing. He didn’t wake up this morning and look for her for instance as Kamryn did at his age when her cousins (adopted not birth) came to visit (nothing sadder than watching a toddler search a house for people who are no longer there). He was a bit of a challenge today but I think that’s mostly related to being overtired from all the activity yesterday AND his teeth, which I thought were all in (guess I thought wrong), seem to be bothering him.

So that was our first meeting. I’m hoping that now that Nana has visited and seen that he is all right there will be less urgency for another visit anytime soon. I want him to continue his relationship with his birth family but on the other hand it’s so very stressful for all concerned (both us and Nana). Once a year, I can handle no problem but I don’t think I want to encourage much more than that right now. Nevertheless, I suspect it will be more often than once a year and I would never refuse a request to visit. Nana is obviously lonely (she talked A LOT about trying to meet a man; talk about an awkward conversation) and I feel for her but (and I have to keep reminding myself of this) Sam is our concern and Nana is an adult that we aren’t responsible for, hard as that is. She’s a nice person and obviously important to Sam. We want to help her but we didn’t adopt her.

The good news that came out of the visit is Sam’s birthmother seems to be doing soooooo much better (she was kind of “lost” there for awhile, most literally). She has gone “home” and good things seem to be happening for her (she has some problems that I can’t/won’t get into here but if you’re the type, keep her in your prayers; she needs them.).