The other shoe’s done hit the floor with a resounding THUMP.
We made a 140-mile dash in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago, to pick up our older daughter and youngest grandson. Her husband pulled a gun on them. It was the last straw for my daughter (understandably). She and the grandson moved into our living room, though she’s making arrangements for a move to the Midwest as soon as some legal details are ironed out. (You can’t take a minor child out of state even if you’re the parent, not without going jumping through some legal hoops first — not even in situations like this.)
While I’m obviously not thrilled it happened at all, I’m glad 1) nobody was ultimately hurt and 2) it happened while we were still living in the state, so we COULD go pick them up.
Daughter and Grandson were waiting for us at the police station with just what my daughter could shove into two backpacks. (Her husband threw the grandson’s new puppy into their only working vehicle, promising he was going to shoot it and come back for daughter and grandson. The stay at the police station was for their safety.)
Our daughter grabbed the only clean clothes she could find in her son’s bedroom. None fit him any more.
Based on what we know about her soon-to-be-ex-spouse, I’m sure he gave her Hell if she told him their son needed clothes.
Once they were here and safe, we made a trip to Wal Mart and did a wardrobe restock for them both, along with a few toys for the grandson. We drove back to their house over the weekend to get a few more things, after a neighbor assured us her the husband had gone. He works several hours away and we knew he was at work, so there was little to no risk of him showing up while we were there.
With all this, chaos reigns at our house for the foreseeable future.
It’s still vastly less stressful than worrying we’d get a call saying our daughter and grandson were hospitalized or dead. Grandson is getting lots of hugs and reassurance that he’s loved and safe.
The photo above this entry was taken with my phone. The chess pieces aren’t part of a game – they’re oversized, about double the height of standard game pieces. The tallest piece is 6.3 inches.
By the way — those things are EXPENSIVE. I’d been looking for a chess game for months, hoping to find one at a yard sale. Closest I came was a used set — an ugly used set, I might add — for forty bucks on Facebook Marketplace. New sets can run into the hundreds of dollars, some over a thousand. Individual pieces in this size, on Amazon, are forty dollars APIECE. The taller ones, a king that’s a foot tall, goes for eighty and up, per piece.
No, I didn’t pay that much. When do I ever pay exorbitant prices?
I found the set of three on Wal Mart’s website for $20. (The price was $19.99 when I ordered. They’ve gone up a smidge.) I ordered them before the situation with my daughter and they were delivered a few days ago. In theory I’d like a full chess set. But G would choose yanking out his toenails with pliers over playing a board game. And nobody else plays, so…
With the kids here now, we’re scaling back for Christmas. I even made homemade gift tags and printed them out.
They turned out pretty well. Because they’re on regular paper (vs the glossy commercial crap), writing on them is also a breeze.
Incidentally, this photo was also taken with my phone.
I’m so sorry that your family continues to have turmoil. But I am relieved you were able to come to the rescue again. Good wishes to all of you in the next weeks and during the holidays.
It’s a bit chaotic but not unhappy with the current situation. I’ll take this over leaving them there, any day.