Yours is a really beautiful gesture. It is rather remarkable how fragile we widowed people are around the birthdays and death anniversaries. I lost my wife 4 years ago at 37 years old to a rare cancer. Even though I plunge myself into work and have a deep, meaningful relationship with another young lady, I feel like hell a few days prior to the big events. Sometimes I have to "check in" with myself on why I feel so poorly since I didn't even realize certain days have crept up on me. Freud was right when he said the first year of widowhood is temporary insanity and I would venture we get a couple of minor echos of it around these difficult times.
I adopted through foster care. We try to maintain a relationship with the biological family. Do to various circumstances beyond our control, we don't tell our kids when we're going to see the biological family because it's never certain until we're really close. Long story short, you can set your clocks to the kids behavior. The closer we get to the time to have visits, the more their behavior reverts. After the visit, everything is normal again.
I can't explain it other than the kids have developed a need and they naturally revert to behaviors they had before those needs were met? The brain is a powerful thing.
