separate states: long distance grandparenting - XYZ Topeka

[ by Leah Sewell | photos by Lydia Barnhart & Matt Porubsky ]

It?s 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and I?ve just cleaned the sticky spots off the dining table before setting the laptop there and opening it up. Within moments, my dad?s kitchenette in Carol Stream, Illinois is on the screen, and then my stepmom, C.J.?s face dips into the camera, then my dad?s. They?re drinking coffee. C.J. isn?t wearing makeup and my dad?s hair is sticking up in three places. They say hi to me, there?s a little chitchat, but they really want the kids.

I move over and get them seated in front of the webcam. For the next twenty minutes, or until the kids get wiggly and wander away, my parents? laughter fills my dining room and my kids are performing for two people with bed-head and giant grins on a computer screen. It?s weird, yes, but it?s something. It?s something in between the two times a year my kids get to see their Grandma C.J. and Grandpa Sewell, two people who I wish were more inside my kids? lives. But they are there and we are here. It?s a fact of life, and one that is true for many grandparents in the nation. According to a poll conducted by grandparents.com in 2009, 40% of grandparents do not live close to their grandchildren.

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The exchange occurs at the McDonald?s in Bethany, Missouri. It?s an easy, familiar place and not too far off the highway. For Gina and Ried Millsap, the place doesn?t really matter. When they pull of the highway and into the restaurant, they only have eyes for their grandchildren. Two children who still have a little chub in their cheeks and wispy blonde hair, Austin, 5, and Allie, 2, are equally excited to see their Grandma and Papa. After a little meal and a visit with Austin and Allie?s mom or dad, the happily reunited grandparents and grandchildren head back to the road to make the remainder of the trip to Topeka.

Austin and Allie

?The interesting thing is, at McDonald?s we see a ton of grandparents and what seem like divorced parents doing the exchange,? says Gina.

More and more parents are raising their children in different areas of the country from where their own parents reside. But does this mean that the relationships between grandchildren and grandparents have deteriorated? Not if you?re a grandma like Gina. She goes to the ends of the earth, or at least 124 miles to Bethany, which is the halfway point between Topeka and her grandchildren?s home in Iowa, to keep that relationship strong and her visits with her grandchildren frequent.

?We didn?t want to be occasional grandparents,? Gina says while sitting in a toy-littered family room where Austin and Allie romp and play and delight in teasing from their grandfather. ?I walked into the hospital room an hour after Austin was born. They handed him to me, and, I mean, that was it. That was my baby.?

Gina and Austin

From the time he could crawl, Austin was spending days on end with his Grandma and Papa at their home near Auburn, just outside of Topeka. Gina, who is the executive director of the Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library, has had to make time in her schedule to spend with the kids when they visit.

?When the kids aren?t here, I put in my traditional long hours, and when they are with us, I don?t,? says Gina.

Ried and Gina have also taken long trips up to Iowa to help out their daughter-in-law (who is now divorced from their son) when extra hands with childcare are needed. It?s the kind of relationship many grandparents enjoy, but one that has a 4-6 week rhythm. Gina and Ried start pining for Austin and Allie after a few weeks, and Austin and Allie start asking after their grandparents more and more, then they reunite, spend a blissful few days together, and another trip to that McDonald?s in Bethany occurs. It could definitely be worse.

*

My mother-in-law, Patti Porubsky, is the kind of grandma you hear about. She?s the scrapbooking grandma, the one who bakes cookies with them, buys them special, thoughtful gifts, and takes them to the pumpkin patch, to Worlds of Fun, to the swimming pool. The woman gives them special valentines complete with balloons, musical cards, chocolates and teddy bears and makes sure it?s the first thing they see when they wake up on Valentine?s Day. I don?t know about you, but a valentine from your grandma? Doesn?t that just kill you?

?Family is what I feel I was put on the earth for,? she tells me, and I can vouch for that. She really means it.

So nearly four years ago, when her daughter?s husband got a job offer in Buckeye, Arizona and the family moved nearly a thousand miles away from Topeka, taking their 3, 5 and 7-year-old kids with them, Patti took it pretty hard.

?I had seen them on an every-other-day basis, so our lives changed tremendously. There was a little hole in my heart when they moved away. It?s just that we were together all the time, and then we ? well, it was awful.?

Since then, she?s tried to maintain strong relationships with the children, and has worked it out to see the kids at least four times a year, with an average of 5 days per visit. But things have changed since the daily interactions halted, and part of that has to do with the kids just growing up. But the other part is that Patti is missing out on the little things.

?Little kids don?t like to talk on the phone,? she says. ?And even with Skyping, they don?t want to share a bunch of stuff. When we get together, we spend too much time trying to have fun and do fun things and go shopping and catch up in that way.?

I?ve seen Patti when the kids are visiting, and she?s a little frantic ? trying to shower them with all the grandmothering she does to my kids over the course of a year, but with only five days in which to do it with the Arizona kids.

Patti with Morgan and Madison

?They expect something special,? she says. ?The ones that you see all the time, you buy them little things here and there, you go to the park, you go to the carousel, do all those special things on a weekly basis.?

A lot of Patti?s friends are in a similar boat, with grandchildren in Kansas City, Des Moines, Florida, Wichita.

?Family is so important to us,? Patti stresses. ?We never dreamt we wouldn?t have our families with us. Nowadays, children go off to find their own independence.?

*

Gina sends the kids books in the mail. ?I?m a librarian,? she laughs. ?In my opinion, you can never have too many books.?

She keeps close tabs on the kids and appreciates their mom sending her quick text messages to keep her informed.

?The nice thing about texting or emails is that if something occurs you don?t really have to spend twenty minutes on the phone with someone and just say, this happened today and I thought you would like to hear it,? she says.

Patti bought a Hallmark book where you can record your voice reading the words and mailed it to the kids. Every once in a while, they can hear Patti?s voice in Arizona, and this, she says, is a small comfort. She makes sure to call the kids at least once a week, and with her oldest granddaughter, Morgan, now having a cell phone, they can text. The kids will visit in late December, and she?s counting down the days.

Oliver talks with his Poppy and Grandma after breakfast

My four-year-old daughter Sylvia holds up her collage to the webcam and says, ?This is my bestest one ever.? Pretty soon she?s doing karate kicks, dancing ballet and running around the house looking for random objects to show her grandma and grandpa. It?s not the full Sylvia, the one who can play pretend for hours, the one who is given to fits of giggles, the one who often sighs heavily and grumbles, ?I wish I could fly like a fairy.? But here she is smiling for them, kicking high in the air in her princess jammies and tangled bed hair.

It?s time to log out. We say goodbye, close the laptop and carry on with our lives.

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Source: http://xyztopeka.com/lifestyle/separate-states-long-distance-grandparenting/

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