Dealing W/ G/Mother Moving

[Manda]

My mother is moving to brissy( from syd) at the end of october, now my mum is very close to DS (3) and DD (2) she often has them O/night ...say once a fortnight on average. A couple of days ago mum and i sat down and tried to explain it to the kids (mostly DS as DD wouldn't understand). Mum started off simple and said the following:
Mum: D you know how R works a long long way from here?
D: Yes
mum: well soon in a few weeks nanny is going to move up there so she can see R more.
DS interupts screaming and crying "no Nanny dont leave i wanna go with you, i wanna go to your house." etc etc was very heart breaking for all of us.
Mum and i explained as best we could that he would still have a few more visits at nannys before she moved and that after she moved, she would come and stay here with us as much as possible (every few months)...for the time being we managed to distract him by telling him all their toys from nanny's like his big car would come here and he could play with them here.
My problem now is how to help him deal with her going.i want it to be as smooth and painless as possible for all of us, espcailly the kids, DD *seems* to not understand a thing but i worry about how she will react when mum *is* gone. I am Very worried about how DS is going to cope.
Does anyone have any hints, suggestions and/or experiences with this sort of thing? Any help would be appreciated.

[shelli]

We had to go through this when my kids' grandparents moved away. This is how we dealt with it:

Exchange addresses - e-mail and house and put them up on the wall.
Write letters regularly
Visits about twice a year for about a week or so by themselves - good break for you, too!! As my two are in school, this would be in the school holidays.
Phone contact at least once a week. Now, though, it has dropped back to about once a month - they are a little older now and understand.

HTH!!

shelli

[debambam]

HUGS to all, I know it can be horrible. I had the same thing with my mum but it was me that moved away. Phone calls are great, as was e-mail and daily pics taken with the phone on both ends. We slowly but surely cut it back over a period of a month or so to one call a week and e-mail/pics every couple of days.....Good luck and keep us posted

[Leigh]

Oh, :hug: Manda, I do not envy you. My kids are very close with the inlaws, and if they were not able to see them many times a week, they would be devastated (I on the other hand ;) )
I hope you guys are able to work something out :)