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Sleepovers at Grandma and Grandpa's House

@babymorgan3 Yesterday your brother and sister returned home after spending "three sleeps" at your grandma and grandpa Morgan's house. We're still sorting through all of the details, but during their time with Grandma they played at the water park inside Kensington Park, and visited the Impressions 5 museum in Lansing. Kayla and Josh are10 and 12, but the concept of spending the night at their grandparents' house is still a relatively new one. I think it's only been over the last couple of years that we've been gutsy enough to try it. First, there was the week when I attended a conference in Ann Arbor so they were only spending a day at a time by themselves with their grandparents, and then eventually we moved up to a couple nights, then a little longer until now I think they're pretty comfortable with the idea. When I was a kid, it was always an exciting treat to spend the night at my grandma and grandpa's house. I benefitted from having an older cousin who was already into spending the night there. I think that when you are a little bit older, you will benefit from the precedent that your siblings have set by spending ocassionally spending a few days on their own with their grandparents' house each summer. One thing that I had when I was growing up as a kid which you won't have is an opportunity to spend a lot of time with your cousins, aunts, and uncles. For me, it seemed as though my extended family was deeply integrated into my life. When my mom, your grandmother morgan, went shopping she was often accompanied by my grandmother, when we went to church we saw our grandparents and cousins, and if I took a walk around the neighborhood it would have been hard to avoid seeing as at least one person who was related to me. When you are born, and brought home, you will be living in a place called Shepherd which is roughly 100 miles from both Hartland, where I grew up and where your relatives live, and Marlette, where your mom is from. So, you won't see your relatives very often except on birthdays, holidays, and those weekends when we are able to make the trip and visit them. And, then there are your more distant relatives who live farther up North or out of state. We've always tried our best to see them every once in a while, too. I'm hoping that as longer stay-overs become more commonplace that these will help to bridge the gap between the times when we naturally would see family (such as holidays) and the times when we can take the time off to make the trip. The best way to get one-on-one time with either your cousins or your grandparents is for you to stay with them on your own, much like I did when I was younger. This would also help us if there is a period of time when your relatives might be open to a having you stay with them, but your mom and I can't take the time off. I had lots of reasons why I liked to spend the night at my grandparents' house: grapefruits with breakfast, sleeping in a different bed, dinner out, helping out with feeding the cows. Looking back, all of these types of experiences blend together into fond memories of the time I spent being with my grandma and grandpa.

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View as: | Blog Post | Doc | Activity Feed | Comment | I'm sure that you'll have reasons of your own. (Your brother, Josh, said yesterday that he liked that he could eat tootsie rolls whenever he wants at his Grandma Boyne's house, something that was missing from Grandma Morgan's house) I'm just hoping that you will be able to get to know your grandparents as well as possible. I'm sure that they will be eager to meet you.