Growing up, my family moved every few years so we never had the experience of living in close proximity to my grandparents. I remember treasuring the trips we went on to visit them and the time we spent with them. And truthfully, I was always a little envious of my friends whose grandparents lived in the same city as them and they got to see them all the time.
I will say that there are a couple of caveats to us not living close to grandparents. Both of my grandparents moved to the same city as us for short stints. When I was in first grade, my grandmother lived with us in Colorado for a couple of years. And during high school, my grandfather, who had never left the state of Alabama, moved to Texas for a couple of years. I have so many great memories of both of those times so I always knew that I wanted to live close to my parents.
Intentional Time
My husband and I started dating while I was in college in Nashville and thankfully, he is also from Dallas so it was a no-brainer that once we were done with school and his medical training, we would be on the fast track back to Dallas, especially once we had kids! Just like I wanted my kids to grow up close to their grandparents, so did my husband. He still talks from time to time about the cousin sleepovers he had at his grandparents houses.
Three years ago, we were living in New Orleans when we had our first child. We did regular FaceTime sessions with the grandparents but it just wasn’t the same as an in person visit on a regular basis. And while we always said we would, pretty soon after our daughter was born we knew for sure that we definitely wanted to move back to Dallas as soon as my husband was done with training.
Change of Plans
Well, if you’re reading this, you’re reading Houston Moms Blog which means you know that I now live in Houston, not Dallas. Not quite the plan, but we love our little life here in Houston, and after living in Nashville, Birmingham, and New Orleans for the past 10 years, Houston is SO much closer to our families – a quick drive up I45 and you’re there within a few hours.
For the first few months after we moved here {pre-COVID} we really took advantage of living close to grandparents. We saw both sets of grandparents at least once a month. There’s nothing like hugs and time spent together, and I love watching our kids with their grandparents. They all have different personalities but love our kids all the same and our kids love them too.
And then came COVID
When COVID happened back in March, one of the things I was most upset about is that they’d be missing out on their regular grandparent visits. They may not live 10 minutes up the street like we imagined, but they were still spending regular quality time together and the toddler, especially, noticed the lack of visits. Thankfully, we had great practice with FaceTime so we fell back into that routine fairly quickly. And we’ll keep doing it until we can go back to a more regular routine of visiting them – perks of 2020 and modern technology.
We’re making the best of our current circumstances and technology, but let’s be honest, nothing beats grandparents who let you stay up past your bedtime and run around as much as you want and give you all the yummy treats and snacks that your parents don’t keep at home, am I right?!
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