The Grandpa That Wasn't

Madhubby's dad is a player. He's been married to three different women for a total of fifty years. Each marriage's demise was hastened by his infidelity. The first time was with Madhubby's mom's best friend. Savvy? The next time was with his high school flame whom he hadn't seen in nearly thirty years. He's kind of restless for an old guy and, obviously, not hurting too much for money since he's making alimony payments out the ass.

But, all this divorcing and remarrying has created a bit of a problem: what do our children call these women? Madhubby and I are pretty much in agreement that his mother is "Nana" and all the other women are, well, not.

The most frequent issue, though, seems to be MadGramps (and his wife's) lack of regard for Lizzie. MadGramps is taking Olie for lunch and shopping, without Lizzie. Of course, he says it's because he want to shop for Lizzie, but Madhubby and I still think it's a slight and we know Lizzie's feelings will be hurt. I don't want to say anything, but Madhubby has been stewing about it.

In this situation, I'm really not sure what the best course of action might be. On the one hand, they aren't related to Lizzie by blood and I can certainly understand their desire to spend one-on-one time with Olie. Also, Lizzie gets special time with her paternal grandparents, which is no different from Olie's time. I think, however, the difference is visibility. Because Olie's grandparents visit us whereas Lizzie goes to visit hers, the visit to our home is so exciting for the children, and they want to spend every moment with the grandparents, showing them their favorite haunts and special collections.

I don't think MadGramps gets it. I suspect he bears me some ill will for seducing his son (that's for another post) but that's his problem. Maybe, they really mean well and want to surprise Lizzie. Or maybe, they just don't care.