Being a long distance granny

Thank you. Will keep my fingers crossed.

Just a reminder to Gransnetters with family in USA that tomorrow (Sunday) is mother's day over there. I've only just realised so I must remember to send an email to DDiL in California, hopefully Skype with them all as well.

Thanks for the reminder rubysong - I'll email my DDiL straight away!

My wonderful son and DIL live in LA and my first grandchild (a boy) is due on 13th July! I am so excited but also terrified of when our visits end. We all cry now when we say goodbye at either LAX or LHR, what it will be like when my husband and I are saying goodbye to a grandchild as well .......
We will make the most of every minute we visit and use FT and Skype as often as possible. Do you think they would notice if I sneaked the baby in my hand luggage?? (Wink)

Separation is about to happen. But it doesn't really help me to know that many of us feel the same despair. The comments about technology making things a bit better are interesting, but technological advances are double edged, it seems to me. I think I will need to touch and fully immerse myself, then bury my head in the sand on separation - maybe write an old-fashioned letter, take real physical photos and print them on shiny paper, accept that we aren't physically close, until we see each other again. Otherwise, it's like a puppet show, isn't it? And stopping and starting sounds to be very painful.
Caring for gc 2 days a week has been wonderful. I am truly grateful for that. But it will make the separation even harder. Departure could be as early as August. Any ideas for advance preparations? A life-size doll with gc's face? Weird thoughts going through my head ... And tears a-plenty. Probably not helped by my Parkinson's diagnosis just before gc was born, so I am anxious about keeping active as time passes. 6 monthly visits sound OK, but what if I have deteriorated significantly in that time?

I have just spent a two week holiday with my son, his Guyanese wife and our two beautiful granddaughters - almost 4 and almost 3. They live in Guyana but we find Florida the best place to meet up ( for our yearly get together) and this is the second time we have done this. Like other contributors we have two grandchildren in the UK who we look after one day a fortnight. We know these children and all their little ways. When we are with our other two it is SO difficult to suddenly turn on a relationship despite good communication with our son ( who in I dentally we also miss very much) and also Skype. We so want to feel the same but it is not easy and it is
not easy for the children either and this is despite a supportive DIL. And when you have a good relationship with one set of grand children it makes you so aware of what you are missing with the oversea ones. As you may realise I am feeling quite sad - I won't be seeing our grand daughters now for at least another year if not longer and am very sad at my failure to bond in the way I would like to have done. I feel I have let them down and also I feel let down. But, I do have some lovely photos of the good moments we DID share so will hang onto those moments. And of course I hope one day they might move to a country that is easier to visit!

I can feel your pain and just wish I could say something that would help. We are in a very similar situation and it breaks my heart. Families are not meant to be so far from each other as it just hurts too much. I can only send you these and maybe this

It is not only distance that separates. Our DS and DiL live less than 10 miles away but we see our one year old DGD so infrequently that she always cries at us .I know exactly where you are coming from EEG as we have a totally different relationship with our DD's twins. We have regularly looked after them from birth and they are always with us from Monday after school till we take them to school on Wednesday. They are often here as a family for one week-end day too and our relationship with them is totally different from that with the other grandchild. Of course in your case the problem is exacerbated by distance which must be very hard to bear. I do feel for you and for you hespian but situations DO change and life often takes an unexpected turn. . I hope for happier times for you both.

hello, I've just joined gransnet and as you can see my user name is 'sort of' gran as my daughter who lives in Australia, sent that in an email to me when her partner had an ivf baby. Well, families come in all shapes and sizes and definitions these days so I am happy to be a gran. I am sent photos by email and although my daughter doesn't use facebook, her partner does so I get to keep in touch that way. Also snail mail parcels are always appreciated and I try and visit once every 18 months-2 years..depending on finance. I am not very technologically minded but need to learn more as there is Skype and instagramme and all sorts of things available now. I know it doesn't make up for being there with them but I have tried to make a full life for myself, so that I/ I am not lonely and 2/ I have something interesting to share news wise when we are communicating.
I went out to Oz as a ten pound pom myself in the early seventies and married an aussie . My children are spread out, 2 in Australia at the moment and one , married and living in Germany and south Africa so we have to get 'with it' and realise the world is a different place these days and travel is more frequent and quite often expected as part of ones career path. I didn't particularly want to learn about laptops and techno stuff but hey ho....it's happening!

Sortof Good positive post, particularly your last sentence (1st para). I think it's important that we long distant grans live well and happily.

Great gvid with youngest son and almost 4 month old granddaughter this morning. GD thoroughly enjoy the airplane I flapped across the screen - a fly swat with twisted up paper wings.

My DS is just about to emigrate with wife and family, and they don't believe in Skype or sending pictures of the children over the internet, and he doesn't make phone calls except in a dire emergency, so keeping in touch will be incredibly difficult. I can write them letters, (assuming I am given the address!) but unless they are encouraged to reply and taken to the post office to buy stamps and post them, I won't hear from them. One is old enough to write, but the other is only two. I have other grandchildren, but it doesn't stop the pain when some go, does it? Can't say anything of course, walking on eggshells as I understand a lot of you are....

Hi RAF. Hope you at least get an address, then you can send postcards to the grandchildren. I send one a month individually to my American lot. I don't expect a reply, but send them because I love them and it's just my way of saying "hello, it's your European grandma here and I'm thinking of you". It's usually just chit-chat, but I also try to include something that will capture their interest.
It's lovely for you to have other grandchildren close by.

Thank you ffinnochio, that's a good idea. Yes, it is lovely to have the others, I guess it is just going to ache for a few months while I get used to it. I know when DS went off on his gap year and said he wouldn't contact us it was like going through a bereavement, but we did hear when he ran out of money! :-)

RAF When you write, enclose a stamped adressed envelope and ask them to send you a letter. Even the 2 year-old can scribble on a piece of paper and it can be enclosed in the "letter" to you.

Stamps will present a problem Elegran, unless stamps of the sender's country can be easily obtained in Britain. Snail mail does have it's disadvantages.

The stamps will be a problem, can you buy foreign stamps to send back to this country? But I will do all I can to remove all obstacles to keeping in touch, thank you for the tips!

With the greatest of respect RAF think your DS is being less than helpful.
Skype and FaceTime are not religions, just a useful way of letting families communicate. My GS2 lives in Singapore and it is lovely to see him running around their local park. He is not speaking yet, but we have managed games of Boo on the screens. Photographs can be emailed or put onto shared photo streams which are private. Could you not persuade him to be less technophobe?

Thanks Purpledaffodil, I only wish! It's not technophobia in the sense he doesn't know how to use it, but he doesn't want his children's images sent over the internet, which I can to an extent understand, even though the risk of hacking or interception is small. If you have ever read Dave Eggers 'The Circle' (I can recommend it, but it will give you the shivers!) it helps to understand a little where he is coming from.

The rest of the family have no problem with skype or facetime, and when we had a wonderful trip round the world in 2012 we kept in touch with the rest of them that way. It would have to be the one who feels he cannot use it who is moving!

It's great to hear that you are all coping with distant children and grandchildren, I will just have to be brave and do the best I can.

These are your grandchildren and of course you want to keep in contact with them and see them grow.

I hope he is planning to post you packets of photographs whenever he can, and not leave you in total ignorance of what they look like.

If Ds is not going to use Skype or Facebook, I would ask him to send you some stamps for the country they are going to. Or how getting some about prepaid airmail letters? I am sure that if you asked at your post office they wouild tell you about ways of doing this, there must be a lot of people wanting to prepay letters from abroad.

I shall do a little Googling on your behalf, though you don't say where they are going. Watch this space!

Found this about International Reply Coupons, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_reply_coupon Very interesting, but it only pays the postage cost, it still requires someone to exchange the coupon for a local stamp.

But surely your son and his wife could take the trouble to put a stamp on a child's letter, address it legibly and stick it in a postbox? They don't have the effort and expense of bringing thecdhildren physically to see you any more if they have emigrated (well, except for holidays back in the UK)

Is there more behind your concerns than just their leaving the country? do you think they will let the children forget you?

Oh dear RAF, it sounds like you just have to do your best with what is available. Elegran's advice sounds useful too. Also I can recommend the Book Depository who will post books internationally post free. I have used them a lot since reading about them on GN and found them very reliable. Sure fire way to ensure Grandma stays in their thoughts is a lovely book arriving unexpectedly . Good luck

Thank you Purpledaffodil, the book depository definitely sounds worth exploring. I don't think they will intentionally let the children forget us completely, just not so much a priority for them. There is a bit of me, unvoiced, which thinks they have threatened to emigrate so many times before, that they still might not settle and could be back by Christmas, you never know. Not dependent on work as DIL will commute from to UK weekly, and he is the house husband. Long story, which I had better not post on here just in case it becomes too identifiable, in which case we would be sent to Coventry!

Hard isn't it RAF? I have that problem too. Very tempting to over share here sometimes and it is a very small world! Maybe you will have some nice holidays to look forward to? I have travelled to places I would never have dreamed of visiting courtesy of my DC! Cue Monty Python song "Always look on the bright side...."

How very true, holidays mean so much now! Off in mid July to a villa with pool in south of France, amazing what holiday clothes you can find on eBay!

RAF I am so envious which is not an attractive emotion! Mr P is not up for holidays at the moment, medical stuff, and cannot be left while I go away. Do enjoy France and let what will be, be. Easy to say I know. I like to take my worries out in the middle of the night and give them a good polishing.