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[quote=Anonymous]My parents are divorced and both remarried, so we have two sets of local grandparents, both "mine." I try to follow their lead in terms of involvement. My mom asked if she could establish a weekly routine of picking them up from daycare (then) and school (now) and spending the afternoon and evening with them. She views it as time with them and also as an opportunity she can give DH and I to have a night off, whether for the purposes of working late or going out to dinner or attending some school board meeting or whatever. The day of the week varies based largely on her schedule and on whether we need her for a specific evening due to a work trip or something like that. It is a real blessing.

My dad and stepmom are not as into routine, so they will ask a day or two in advance if they can drop by for dinner, which means they'll show up in the afternoon, take the kids to the playground or spend time at our house, and get takeout for all of us. They also usually will help with bath/bedtime if DH and I are running late from work. They are around more on the weekends and will come by or invite us over, and occasionally ask to have the kids for a sleepover or we will ask them to take them if we have an event. (My mom has a weekend house outside the city, so is rarely around on weekends.)

In a pinch, we have had a set of grandparents sleep over at our house, when DH and I have work trips that can't be reconciled.

Our kids are currently 6 and 3 with another on the way. No substantial homework yet, so grandparents are pure fun, not disruptive of routine. Both DH and I enjoy their company. No one shows up unannounced. No one overstays their welcome. In other words, this whole thing works well for us because we generally have good boundaries (something I didn't know could be such an issue until I started reading dcum!) and because my parents both adore and are respectful of DH, so there's no inkling of conflict there. And DH is good-natured about the amount of time we spend with them.

I do have a question about whether the respective grandparent sets can handle all three kids on their own (my mom usually comes w/o stepdad, and my dad is not in perfect health mentally or physically so my stepmom tends to do most of the kid-wrangling) once the baby arrives, but we'll just cross that bridge when we come to it I suppose. [/quote]

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