Yes I agree, me and my gd have so much fun at home we have tea parties,she just got a new bike and were learning how to ride,I love to see her smiles and laughter! I cherish every moment;we also go to walmart alot she likes to smile at the elderly and it makes their day,I got her some math flash cards and she is already learning MATH,omgosh;she is truely amazing,my point is you dont have to leave the house to keep them busy***

joy,

i was thinking about flash cards. today we painted nails and got new hair ties, and braided hair after we had oreos and milk! now we are watching a dvd then off to bed. then grandma is gonna watch some of the winter games! night all!

I love going to my grandson's sporting events and school functions. He loves sports and is in football, basketball, AAU basketball, and track. We've traveled many miles and spent many weekends at tournaments. I was worried that when he graduates in 2012 we'll be bored, but my 8-year-old granddaughter is starting basketball, so guess I'll have lots more to watch - we're not raising her but of course I'll go watch her play. My daughter once asked me why I don't just skip a tournament once in a while and rest, and I told her that I'll rest when I'm old. I'm working full time, taking care of my 83-year-old dad who has dementia, and raising my grandson, and I'm almost 60. Every one of the kids in his class calls me 'Grandma', they all requested me as a friend on Facebook, and most of the boys have spent the night at our house more than once. I make them bacon, eggs, and pancakes for breakfast and they love it. I'll keep doing as much as I can for as long as I can and have no desire to sip tea by a pool - sounds way too boring to me.

One more note: We chose to raise our grandson. No one made us do it, we have him by choice, so I don't believe that we're any different than other parents except for being just a bit older.

Right on Kat! We made the choice also and when my gs was young I was caring for my mom about same age as your dad and also had dimentia. We had my youngest daughter living w/us after college (mainly to help me out) and sil (bio dad) who was so loopy it was pathetic. When daughter got married, put mom in nursing home because she needed constant care and bio dad remarried (another story) and it wound up being me, hubby and gs. That is when we started our new family. Do we miss out on cruises, dinners, etc.? Yes and nothing w/change that. However, we created some wonderful memories w/gs and have become a strong family. Nothing feels better than hearing my gs at 20 say: "my parents love me and are always there for me". No manicure or cruise could feel better than that! I'll take the cruises when I'm (as you say) old. Raising a second family has made me so much more aware of the world and I have so much I want to do! We tried to get together with a group of old friends who are nicely entrenched in retirement and had to find a Sunday afternoon because they did not want to drive in the dark! What???? I don't want to be like that. My kitchen is brightened with my gs's friends who always come and talk w/me because my gs tells them they can trust me. Glad to hear I am not alone in this! btw, everyone should note that many grans who come to this site are as young as 35. There are great grandmothers who are raising the great grandchildren!

With 2 teenagers and a 6 year old we have to consider our activities. We all love the beach and are going to Florida for a week this summer, queit little island on the Gulf near my mom's people. the girls mentioned Disney and I told them a week on the island or 2 or 3 days if Disney was included. They all choose the full week. We will go to an amusement park nearer home once if the girls don't get to go with their church this year. We just enjoy the beach and time away from home. We are going to visit my sister this weekend and take in an AKC dog show, free and fun if you like to see all kinds of dogs.

thats one thing i got. i live in florida so we can go to the beach a lot! and if we have money we can go to all the amusement parks.

JMJ516, Re your response to me:

Hey Lady, it is commendable that you can afford to do all that, but most people work fulltime.

*Yes, I am lucky I can work just part time right now but of course everyone knows the RE market is in the potty right now. I also volunteer at the school in her SDC classroom 2 days a week, I have a very lg house that I clean myself with no help as well as laundry and caring for 2 animals. I pay all the bills and make all the appts for the household, buy all birthday gifts and send all cards, all while dealing with an emotionally, verbally, mentally and sexually abused little girl who has FAE, RAD and ADHD. It is not easy.

I know for myself after working all day all I have time for is to get home, cook dinner and get the GD a bath. She goes to bed early as she has to get up early. Not much time.

**Same here...., and I'm dealing with ADHD, RAD and FAE so homework is sometimes a nightmare to get done as well as getting her going on dinner, bath, brushing teeth and in bed by 8 pm because if she doesn't get enough sleep the next morning is another nightmare!

Then on the weekends between cleaning the house and running errands, not much time left there either.

**See my answer above

I was able to cram in dancing lessons for a few months on Saturdays, but that can be expensive. This summer we are going for swimming lessons. "

**My hubs and I have been out only once in the last 9 months or so because our lives are so consumed with helping this little damaged angel. We try to do what we can to give her the life she deserves but we are not young....we are both 60 and tired all the time. We have no one to give us a break even for a nite and believe me it is completely draining dealing with her issues let alone the tiredness of our work. No one understands what a strain it is unless you are dealing with the same thing, this is not just raising a gd it is raising a damaged gd and trying to make it right for her.

As I stated before, we are all just doing the best we can, giving what we can to these precious little children, there is no right no wrong, no doing better than others there is only each of us doing the best we can, and we're all tired.

Ladyrltr I know exactly what you mean! My husband and I are almost 60, as well. While we have energy it just isn't enough to deal consistently with the demands of THREE little kids. Two have to go to Girl Scouts - we missed this month's meeting for one and may miss tonight for the other. Between working full-time, housework (I, too, clean our house), cooking, shopping and digging out from two-plus feet of snow, there's just nothing left over.

I'm sure much of this is just winter blues. We have never had so much snow in our history, and it's finally wearing everyone down. And now we may be getting more on Monday. Even the kids are sick of it.

Oh and I forgot....I do all the shopping, cooking and shuffling her to school each morning and home each evening, take her to all dr appt's, girl scouts etc.

My part time work is about 25-30 hrs a week so I guess that is a little better than part time, so If I calculate it right I spend about 50-60 hrs a week between work, the house, the animals and Missy.

At 60 I never thought I would be this busy but I wouldn't give it up for the world....well....maybe I might be able to handle winning a huge lottery so I didn't have to work, could hire a maid and bookkeeper to do all that stuff, then I could just take care of Missy and relax, lol.

well i would not say for myself i would not give it up for the world. i know in my heart that if the dd ever got it together she deserves to have a relationship with her mom. i pray everyday for that.

i think most of us clean our own homes work and so as much as we can for the grands. all of us are in a stressful sitsuation and it can be very trying at times.

i thank god i took the gd when i did as she would have been damaged and it might have been to late. there is no way she could go back now and i will fight to keep her safe. but again if her bio mom ever gets it together and a healthly reunion is possible that is what i pray for everyday. no matter what the bio is my dd and my gd mommy. that will never change.

ps... there are days a good game of candy land beats the golf course! ;)

jmj516,

See the difference in you and I is that I have no hope for the druggie, street walking bio incubator that damaged this baby by drinking and drugging the whole pregnancy. My son the bio dad is in her life but as much as I hate to admit it will never be responsible enough to deal with his daughter and all the damage that was done in the first 7 yrs of her life.

The adoptive's abused and neglected her and I will never let her go back to that so we are it!! The progress and growth we have seen in this precious little girl in the last 2 1/2 yrs is so remarkable, yes we will always have issues to deal with but she will never have to deal with what she did in her previous home.

So, yes I would never change anything because if we hadn't been willing to take her she would have been lost in the system somewhere with no family to love her and care for her.

Would I have changed this??? yes!! I would have taken her from birth the way we tried to do but the system worked against us, so she would not have had to ever go thru the abuse she did.

I also think that if the bios wait too long to get their acts together it can be too late.

I imagine what would happen if my husband's daughter, for instance, recovered, earned her GED, got a good job, married well, found a great house, etc. etc. (Just think of the odds of that happening alone!)

That would take at least another two years - the married part might not ever happen at all. Two years from now the grandchildren would be with us for seven years. They would be 13, 11, and 9. Those are extremely fragile years, and a disruption in their living arrangements, broken friendships, new schools, new parenting styles, yada-yada could strain them beyond reason.

As much as I would like my life and freedom back, I am determined that the kids will not go back to her after all this time. Had they been living with us for a year or two before she cleaned up, yeah, maybe that would work. But they've now been with us almost longer than they've been alive.

This is not a competition! We are all doing our very best in circumstances none of us signed up for. Some of us are in our 40s, some in our 50s, some in our 60s. We are extremely healthy and energetic or we are arthritic or we have almost completely disabling health concerns. Some of us are well-off, some barely meet the bills.

I live 2 miles from Universal Studios and 10 miles from Disney World. I almost never go because we aren't employees and can't afford the astronomical ticket prices, even for Florida residents. So instead, we go to the local playgrounds, swim in our friends' pools, whatever we have the money and energy for day to day.

Our grand doesn't care about that. All she cares about is knowing we're right there with her, every minute of every day and that, even though so-called "mommy" and "daddy" flit through when they feel like it, grandma and grandpa are giving them what they need most of all--a safe, stable loving home environment.