A long time ago, Mr. MPB and I instituted an rule that if family members make an effort to visit and know us, we will make an effort to visit. It needs to be reciprocal, as I believe all quality relationships need to be. In fact, the other weekend we loaded up the care and drove hours to visit family because they made an effort to visit us (and let me tell you, the drive was not all that much fun with a crying baby and took a lot longer then the normal 6 hours).
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I’ve mentioned before that we have some family members who have completed changed since Baby MPB joined our family. Instead of driving past our house, they now stop in. In fact, they stop in at least every few weeks (as an aside, I had no idea they were in this part of the province that frequently). Regardless of past avoidance and issues, they are now making an effort and going above and beyond to know Baby MPB. In fact, just the other day one even stayed over night and when having breakfast handed me their phone and said, can you take a photo of Baby MPB and I having our morning coffee together.
Yup, their effort and love for our child have not gone unnoticed.
I’m thankful every time they visit to see just how much they love our son.
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But, what’s now donned on me is that others are not making any effort. I am specifically talking about one set of grandparents. Once Baby MPB arrived, they wanted to facetime daily with us when we were in the USA, and then once a week once we got home. Now, sadly we cannot get them to chat with us/Baby MPB for the life of us (I know screentime for an infant is bad, but we deemed a weekly call with grandparents to be okay as we want them to know each other and distance means we wont have as frequent of visists). I send photos via text/email, and never get acknowledgement/responses. In addition, asides from a visit right after Baby MPB came home, they have not and will not visit. Now, let me just point out that they have the money and the time to come visit once a month if they wanted to. We’ve recently specifically asked them to come visit this summer. In fact, we asked them to help with childcare for a few days while our nanny is on vacation and in doing so we specifically asked them to come spend time with their grandson.
The fact that we asked for help is almost unheard of for us. And the fact that they said no just broke my heart. Not because I want to visit with them (quite frankly they’ve been mean to me for years, I’m personally okay not seeing them). But my heart hurt for them.
I’m afraid one day they are going to wake up and be too old to travel and visit.
I’m afraid one day they are going to wake up and realize they don’t know their child, which is already the case.
And, even more, after years of begging for grandchildren, I’m afraid one day they are going to realize they missed knowing their grandchildren. And their grandchildren wont know them.
We’ve talked to other members of that side of our family and they’ve noticed the same thing. These grandparents have only visited them twice since their child was born almost a year ago. So, ya, it’s the grandparents and has nothing to do with adoption, which is a relief as I’ve worried about them not accepting him.
But, my heart is still heavy.
This set of grandparents will not make an effort, they seem to expect their children/grandchildren to be solely responsible for visiting. The fact is we simply cannot afford to fly across the country for frequent visits, it’s just not an option. And honestly, I just don’t think it should only be us making an effort.
So, while once upon a time I would have tried to change them and I would have forced Mr. MPB to visit them, this time I am not going to. I’m letting go and simply accepting what is. We will focus our efforts on investing in the relationships that are reciprocal. And so, our son will have stronger relationships with those who make an effort to know him. And hopefully we will help teach our son about the value of quality relationships.
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- Baby MPB never seizes to amaze me. He can cross a room in 2 seconds simply by rolling. Weve decided that we require immediate baby proofing. And I’m officially slightly scared of the next few months, but also very excited!
- We love to cook. So of course, our child currently hates basically all food. Except pureed meat sauce and spaghetti squash pasta. This kid is weird.
- It feels like all of our friends are moving. This makes me sad. And I’m curious, how do we make new friends at this point in our lives? Do we put out a friends wanted ad?
- My work is slow right now and one of my projects has been delayed by about a month or two. Rather then letting this stress me out, I’m focusing on enjoying this time with Baby MPB.
- Even though I said I would not join a gym, I joined a spin studio. I’m now going three days a week – I’m hoping by the end of the summer I’ll be in much better shape. If I’m lucky maybe I’ll even be back to my pre-multiple miscarriage fitness level. I hope.
- We are doing a modified paleo diet. Mr. MPB loved Courtney’s idea to cook paleo at home but eat whatever we want when we are out, so we are giving it a try. With the exception of milk in my chai tea latte’s we are cooking almost exclusively paleo at home. It’s actually been a lot of fun trying all kinds of new recipes. Did you know you can make pudding with a pureed cauliflower base and it’s actually not horrible?
- Our dog has recently stopped sleeping on the floor next to my side of the bed. She is now sleeping outside of Baby MPB’s room. After 6 years of being our dogs main person, part of me is almost jealous. Even though I miss her being close to me, it’s cute to see our dog and babies relationship develop. Speaking of the dog, for no reason she just crawled under my desk – needless to say a small filing cabinet, garbage can, my feet and her 90lbs do not fit under my desk very well.
- Baby MPB has learned how to screech. I cannot lie, it is driving me insane. It’s the first thing he has done that irritates the heck out of me. I desperately hope thi is a short phase and he will move on to more cute babbling soon.
- Family photos. We did infant photos when Baby MPB was 6 days old thanks to an awesome photographer who made room for us in her schedule with less then 24 hours notice while we were travelling. How often are we supposed to do these? Should we be doing them again soon?
- Tomorrow marks 6 weeks since by breast reduction surgery. From a lifestyle perspective I am completely back to normal and considered healed. Much to my surprise I’m still a bit bruised. Apparently 6 weeks post surgery is the worst the scarring will ever look, and I can honestly say if it looks like this forever I’d still have no regrets. But I am excited to see the scaring fad over the coming months.
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My Perfect Breakdown 