Visiting Fiona soon!

We are going to visit Fiona this Saturday.  I am looking forward to it.  It is a busy week to plan for the trip as my boss is on vacation, but we will make it work.  I need to get to a beauty supply store and get her a long clip on pony tail to try and assuage her extension desires, and the night before I will need to make mac and cheese.  Or maybe early early Saturday morning.  Haven't quite worked that one out yet.  There is a fair amount of planning and packing for the days jaunt into the big city but I am so looking forward to seeing my daughter. The kids have been talking about the visit eagerly.  Lissa is very proud that she is seeing her big sister and KC can't wait to do some art with her and tell her about how a bee stung him not once but twice!

 Rob is always quiet about the visits and I suspect that part of him always worries that something in Fiona's behavior will de-rail a visit.  That was a frequent occurance in the past and although I once had a social worker say blithely to me "the children just need to write new stories together" it is really not that simple. As an adult, I have a perspective that is far different from my son's.  And his feelings are complicated by  a layer of feeling disloyal for feeling frustrated and guarded etc.  It seems to help that his younger siblings embrace Fiona and feel as connected to her as if she was able to live with us.  She is clearly family to all of us, but I see him hold a bit of himself back and know that this is a legacy of the past.  I'd love for Rob to be able to just "write a new story" but life is not a series of short stories, it is a long complicated epic and I think we are in one of those long parts of a story that bridge to another exciting section.  But bridges can be long, and patience is definately required in negotiating them safely.