Stalking .....

 Before the divorce my daughter-in-law decided that she wanted to adopt more children, adding more stress to my son's already unhappy existence. He kept all of his misgivings to himself and put on a happy face every time he saw me. The times that we were together were way too few, so it was easy enough to act like all was okay around me for a limited time.

I may have failed to mention that the girls are black and the two (yes, two!) she now wanted to adopt were black as well. Made no difference to us, but I got the distinct impression that she enjoyed the attention this afforded her. She liked people to think she was a such a good person, taking in these children and giving them such a great life. The two in question were a brother and sister in the foster system. The boy was just a bit older than Child One and the girl was close to Child Two's age.

When adopting from the foster system there are more conditions that have to be met. They had 3 bedrooms and another bedroom in the basement. The basement was completely finished except for the furnace room that held the furnace and the water conditioning system and such. 

It was also my son's "office" for days when he worked from home. They would occasionally rent out the basement to people they knew or family. I would never have rented the space. It had no privacy, and the girls were allowed to roam the entire house and would often be found in the renter's space. To fulfill the square footage requirement for the foster children to have their own spaces, they closed in their dining room to make a bedroom for the boy and the little girl was to share a room with Child Two.

In the midst of talking to contractors about things like changing the roof line and what advantages it would have for re-sale value I happened to be visiting, staying at my daughter's house. I was taking care of Gavin while his mom was away and would migrate to my son's house, with groceries (having use of a vehicle and not stranded at her house) and meet Other Gramma to share an evening meal with the children.

It was during one of these events that she (Other Gramma) asked me why my son did not just put his foot down and tell her daughter that they were done adding children to the family. "Really, have you met your daughter?" I asked. She knew the marriage was not a stable one and as the girls were no longer babies they were becoming more difficult to control. Well, not for me, so much. I wasn't there every day and having to deal with the lack of structure and discipline. So, I presented her with my own question, "Why are you enabling this by appearing every day and doing the primary care giving for the girls?" "Aren't you tired?" She was older than me and I lacked the stamina to deal daily with the chaos.

The nest evening as I sat with my daughter-in-law, holding a child while she held another, finally having found a TV program that caught their attention I decided to interfere. I had raised 5 children without daily help from anyone other than my husband. On rare occasions I would have some help, but those events were few and far between. I expressed this and told her how difficult it was to take care of the girls because they had no schedule, no discipline and were allowed to run roughshod over the adults. I suggested to her that instead of adding more people to the mix, that maybe she should consider working on her relationship with her husband.

She did not come right out and say anything, but this was not received well. Her takeaway from that conversation was to hire a sitter to help me with the girls the next time I was to care for them. The remodel to make a bedroom out of the dining room was completed. I never saw it. 

Now, before you ask about losing a place to eat, I should explain that my daughter-in-law had, um, unique ideas when decorating her home. The dining room was never equipped with a table for dining. The table was in what I assume was meant to be a breakfast room for a small table. On the wall facing the kitchen was a mural that she paid someone to paint. I am thinking she was going for a vineyard in Venice, complete with clusters of plastic grapes and fake greenery hanging. A large table with large chairs were crammed into this corner and one had to navigate one's seat through toys and folded laundry and all the fake landscaping. 

The dining room was a "music room". It was adorned with a piano, a keyboard, several guitars and an electric drum set. My son plays guitar and dabbles with the drums. The children had toy instruments and that room could produce a lot of sound, none of it melodic.

With the new bedroom, a date was set for a trial weekend visit for the foster siblings. Things did not go well. Other Gramma threatened to stop helping if they adopted two more children and was not in attendance for the trial run. These children were a product of very disturbed parents. The little boy started out by referring to the girls as his "bitches". That was his mild language skills. He was aggressive in his behavior towards all of the people in the house. The little sister was equally disturbed. Not communicating at her age level and to emphasize her unhappiness she would poop in the floor!

Of course, we all know who was appointed to clean up the mess and deal with the boy's attitude. My son. He did and upon returning the children to the foster home he finally put his foot down and told her that he was not going to agree to adopt the children. This set the plans for divorce.

She liked to travel first class and one year they visited Disney World four times. I told my son that he needed to cut back, the "magic" was gone!! To all those trips to Disney World because she said she felt it to be important to make the girls' childhood magical, a trip to Hawaii became an annual event. Other Gramma always accompanied the family and paid a lot of the expense. I was invited on every trip, but declined, as I had a kampground to run. 

I was happy to have a ready excuse and not be expected to provide childcare for the trip. The trip involved a layover in California. This was used to visit Disney Land. There were always a multitude of Mickey and Minnie ears in the toys at their house.

When my Dad died, I made the trip alone to his house. Labor Day weekend was upon us and my husband stayed at the kampground. My son flew to Georgia to be with me for the funeral and the aftermath. I later found out that in order to pay for his plane fare, he sold his plasma! She held onto the purse strings tightly!