BellaOnline Forums Family Adoption Grandparents adopting grandchildren

Connie, your first question here was what you should be called. Have you made that decision yet? What does she call you now?

Has there been a 'successful' visitation now that you're all well?

Has your daughter and the new grandson from Texas visited you by now?

Just keeping in touch!

Hey GrannyH,

She calls me gramma sometimes, most of the time she really doesn't call me anything. I was just curious for the future.

There is a visit today. The mom called the worker and requested a dhs supervised visit, she doesn't want to come visit at our house. So the worker is coming to pick Mary Jayne up and take her to the park and have an hour visit with her mom. It has been 6 weeks since the last visit now. The worker told the mom she would only supervise 1 1-hr visit a month and if she wanted any more than that she would have to learn to work with us. I am figuring she doesn't want to visit here because every time she comes we ask her what she is doing about setting up a trust for Mary Jayne and our other grandaughter that our son has. When he died he had a life insurance policy and she was the beneficiary. It had been my husband but we are thinking she pressured him into changing it to her. They had been apart for 2 weeks when he died and they were not married. She told the judge our son wanted her to set up a trust for both girls, $100,000 each. She recieved half a million dollars because his death was an accident. Of course she has not done anything for the girls. She has bought 3 new cars (she doesn't have a license right now as she got a dui a couple of weeks after we got Mary Jayne) a 4 wheeler and a house. I am not sure how she has purchased the cars, maybe in her parents name. We talked to a couple of lawyers and there is nothing that can be done because it is a contract. If they would have been married it would be a different story. So then we talked to several lawyers about suing her on the girls behalf for their trust money and the same problem, they were not married. This has been a big horrible mess. And the mom has not purchased a diaper for Mary Jayne. She had been working part time and so the amount of child support she is supposed to be paying is around $35 a week. Of course she is way behind on that now. It has been a horrible ordeal. I am hoping the money will last until we go to court in July. Mary Jayne recieves social security every month because of my son's death and she knows about it and I am afraid after the life insurance is gone she might think of getting that. We are putting it in a savings account right now but plan to do something different with it when it accumulates so that Mary Jayne would have some money later on. Hopefully she will want to go to college and I am sure her mother will not find college necessary for Mary Jayne.

My daughter from Texas is supposed to come visit some time soon for a couple of days. The baby is doing well. They are moving to a house with 3 bedrooms so the baby will have his own room so she is pretty busy right now.

Talk to you all soon, Connie

Hang in there, Connie!

How did the visit go?

Stay strong--it sounds like you are a wonderful influence in your granddaughter's life.

I hope the visit went well--I'm keeping you in my thoughts!

Hi Brandii, the worker said the visit went well after a bad start. The other gramma was there and launched into complaining about us...I didn't ask what she complained about. The gramma has called the workers several times to try to get Mary Jayne removed from our home. She said she just told her this was supposed to be a happy visit and she didn't want to hear any complaining from her. The other gramma couldn't foster Mary Jayne because of her pot smoking and drinking, her husband is also an alcoholic and suffers from post traumatic stress disorder after years in the service. He was in Nam and the Gulf War. He is actually a really nice guy. The worker brought Mary Jayne home and she was happy to see me and started talking and ect and the worker said wow, she was really quiet at the visit. I just wondered what she expected, she is 20 mths old and has not seen her mom for 6 weeks and only a 40 or so minute visit the last few times once a week. She has not seen the gramma since January.

The worker said the mom did not ask about another visit. She has told her several times if she wanted to see Mary Jayne more than once a month she needs to get with us. For the first time after a visit the baby did not act out afterwards or have temper tantrums so that is a good thing.

Connie

Hi Connie!

Just checking in...

How are you feeling and holding up?

I hope your weekend is going ok, despite everything you all are going through!

Hey Brandii,

We had a nice weekend despite the weather. We were in the middle of that horrible snow storm. It started Friday morning. I woke up to the sleet hitting my bedroom window and there was thunder and lightning. Luckily we missed out on the wind or we would have been in big trouble. We think we got over 2 feet of snow. I haven't been out since Thursday. School was cancelled on Friday and my son's prom was postponed until next Saturday, boy was he disapointed! I could not have even imagined getting out though. My husband is going to take me for groceries this afternoon. I am terrified of falling since I fell last February and had compound fractures on both sides of my ankle. I have a big metal plate and lots of screws in my ankle now. The puppy has been bonkers with cabin fever, but luckily the baby didn't care one way or another. She was happy to have both of us home I am sure!

Hi Connie!

I hope you are having much better weather this weekend--for you, the baby, and the puppy, lol!

What type of puppy do you have?

I hope everything went well this past week.

Hey Brandii,

We just got back from an overnight trip. The baby, the puppy, and my hubby and I. It was murder finding a hotel that would allow pets over 25lbs. Actually, he is quite a bit over 25lbs! Today at PetsMart he weighed 96lbs. He just turned 5 months. I finally did find a pet friendly motel, unfortunately our room was upstairs and he has never been upstairs, but he learned very fast. He is a great dane and we took him to several PetsMarts, PetCos and Lowes. He hasn't been out much because he is a winter time puppy, but he was the belle of the ball and everyone wanted to pet him and ask questions. He also had some interactions with other dogs which were good so that was nice.

This week was busy, hubby's dad is in the hospital. He has cancer and has been going downhill for quite some time so the baby and went and visited him. He lives an hour and 15 min from us. He is doing much better but will be in the hospital for a while. But other than that, most of the week was good and it has warmed up again and the snow is gone and we are thinking about flower gardens and vegetable gardens.

Here is a recent photo of Morty:
Morty

Here is one of Morty and Mary Jayne:

Morty & Mary Jayne

For the life of me I can not figure out how to post the photos to the post!!! Maybe I should read the faqs....

Hi Connie!

Both of your pictures were so adorable!

I love Great Danes! 96 pounds at 5 months? WOW! I'm so happy you found a dog friendly hotel, and that Morty learned the steps well!

What type of flowers and vegetables are you planting this year? I�m determined to have a tomato plant indoors in our sunroom. Whenever I plant one outside, the raccoons get to the tomatoes before we do, lol!

Maybe you could plant a little flower garden for Mary Jayne? When my nieces were that age, I planted some sunflowers, and they were doing really well. That is, until I accidently ran into them with the lawn mower (and discovered the benefits of a garden border the same day).

I�m so sorry to hear about your father-in-law being in the hospital. I�m sure your visit meant quiet a lot to him.

I hope you guys have a wonderful week ahead, and hope that your father-in-law continues to improve!