Need serious grandparental advise...gift for a child of divorced parents.

Tweet

Big problem..need advise or comments. My son and wife divorced about 4 years ago. Their daughter is now 5. I do a little day care for her. The two of them don't hardly speak to each other. She spends half the week with daddy and the other half with mommy and me (Nanny!) in the middle sometimes. She just turned 5 and starts kindergarten this fall. I am sure there will be a custody battle over who she "lives" with to go to school. The parents live about 1,1/2 apart, so obviously she will have to be at one's house for the school week. When that happens, I will hardly ever see her except for holidays I am making her a t-shirt quilt out of her favorite t-shirts she has worn...like the one that says..."everyone loves a blue eyed girl" and "daddy's little prrincess"...shirts that have meaning to her. She really liked Hanna Montana and Tinkerbell so the front of those are on the quilt too. At only 5, she has alot of memories and loved alot of things and when she is 18 she can look at it and remember.."I loved that" or "oh, that was so cute" or "I remember that!". I just spent about $60 for the supplies and fabrics, but while choosing it all...I had a horrible thought. With her living in different homes, parents basically not speaking to each other (daddy remarried and has 2 more girls, mommy lives with her parents and won't get a job...just lives on the monthly child support) and she has her own room at both houses. I spend christmas with my family at my sons....I don't see her mom except when I take her back on "switch day"...I am still cordial and civil and nice and all with her mom, and her with me, but that is about as far as it goes. I do and do for her, but when I ask for a few hours with the daughter, she never allows it. My new DIL doesn't like me very much and I think mainly that is cause she feels jealous of the relationship between me and my son (her husband) and me and his daughter. She doesn't all GD to even speak of her mom while at their house. I told my son "if she didn't want an "x-wife" issue, she shouldn't have married someone that had one" but that goes nowhere. So my question is this... I put the children first all the time but the two women...only put themselves first. so...do I give my GD her quilt at Christmas when I am at her daddy's house to keep there or do I give it to her to take home to her mommy's house to keep there? Both parents know about the quilt as I had asked both for t-shirts over the years. My concerns...if I give it to be at daddys house...is DIL going to just stuff it in the closet and not let her have it cause it reminds DIL of me (that she doesn't really like) and also of a time before she came into the family that she doesn't want to have in her life now. If I give it to GD to keep at mommy's, are they going to let her use it or ignore it cause it came from a person in the family x-DIL no longer belongs to and doesn't really like anymore and is from the mother of her x-husband? Either way, that poor little girl is the one that suffers and pays the price...and looses. I want her to have it, and she will love it but I can see where the parents will cause a problem and then...there goes her memories. Anyone have any ideas, comments, thoughts or solutions?