Posted by:
knotheadusc
(
)
Date: September 14, 2023 10:21AM
Those of you who know my story might remember that for many years, both of my husband's daughters were very estranged, thanks to their mother's parental alienation campaign. Both are now well into adulthood, and the younger one reconnected with my husband in 2017. She lives in Provo.
Over Labor Day weekend, she sent us an email that read "Happy Labor Day", complete with a picture of her standing by her front door. There was a caption that read "Our Labor Day will be sometime in February 2024". That's how we got the news that she's pregnant with her fourth baby. I think this one will probably be the last, but you never know.
We happened to be riding a gondola over German vineyards when we got the news. We had just been talking about her eldest, who is about to turn six years old. We sent her congratulations and my husband got all verklempt, because he loves being in touch with one of his daughters. He wishes the other would connect, but even being in contact with one is more than he ever hoped for.
I thought it might be nice to send his younger daughter a care package, since we usually send stuff from our travels to the kids (with some of her favorite German candy thrown in). So I asked her what scents she likes and if anything in particular is making her feel sick right now. She told me what she likes, so I got her a couple of Molton Brown assortments. I figure she can pick which one she likes best. One of the bottles has a scent that smells of tobacco. It's kind of nice and woodsy. Hopefully, the name won't put her off.
I threw in a pair of Irish wool socks, ginger lemon chews for nausea, Dutch chocolates, stroopwaffles, and some German skin cream for the inevitable stretching. I can hardly believe it. I never thought this would have been possible a few years ago. She is the complete opposite of her mom, which is a huge blessing.
I started calling myself "pseudogranny", because it's fun to shop for my husband's grandkids. It's been fun getting to know her. When she was younger, she was the most estranged, but she made up her mind to escape her mother and live her life on her own terms. I couldn't be prouder if I were her mom.