Life Changes

Hello,

When Leroy and I were raising our children, we always visited our parents. They visited us infrequently. My parents seldom came because my dad was a dairy farmer. He could not leave the cows who had a heightened sense of stranger danger. This fear caused them to yank their heads against the station when a new person came in the barn. It also meant they might possibly or probably refuse to let down their milk. Even though we do not think about cows as nursing mothers, all lactating mothers need a feeling of peace and safety to have the process work well. Leroy’s family just simply did not like to travel much and going across Iowa was too far to come often.

We would visit our parents at the winter holidays, alternating between families, one at Thanksgiving and the other at Christmas then switching the order the next year. Generally we would also visit each of them once in the summer.

Interesting that as empty nesters the ideas about who is traveling have changed. Our children seldom visit us, instead we visit them more.  Especially for our daughters it is expense as they live so far away. With the expansion of their families, airfare amounts increase. Consequently, two can travel cheaper than three or four. Brian and Jen have been in our home the most because of less travel distance being able to drive instead of fly makes the bigger group a mote point. One of my grandchildren has not been in our home and two were under a year old the last time they came. Miriam and her girls will come in August; their last visit was in 2009.  Both girls and their families will come this Christmas. Yes! I think is ironic that we are now living in one of the smaller places in recent years and they are coming. Where are those four bedrooms when I need them?

Another change, we have to ask our kids how to do techno things. “Leroy, did our parents ever ask us how to do anything?” I wondered last night.

We cannot think of anything.

Last night Leroy called Brian who did not answer then Andy to get some advice about transferring play lists to the IPod from the computer. This was after spending much time trying to figure it out by his own brain power. We did figure out how to send pictures from the IPod otherwise we would have had to call Stephen to learn how to do that since we believe it is similar to the steps he would use with his IPhone. It was not hard, but not knowing where or how to look can make anything difficult.

Paula