Experiences and advice from a Step Mom in training

This is one of my favorite stories about our Oldest son.  So he starts to learn to drive (he was so bad at it!!!) and his Grandfather gives him a car that dies just a few months after he had it.  Mechanical, wasn’t his fault.  Of course our son had torn the bumpers off by hitting things with it, but oh well.  His Dad promises to help him find a good sound used car, but I guess it wasn’t on our son’s timeline.  So his Mother’s boyfriend…has a friend…who knows a guy….one of those deals..who resurrects a car from a salvage yard and “fixes it up” for our son.  His Mother tells him he had to spend his own money to buy this car (we would have matched on a good car had he been more patient)  and she also requires that he pay to insure it.  Pretty steep for a young man still in High School, playing sports actively and only able to work part time bussing tables. Nothing wrong with him helping pay for it all…I think that’s good…anyway he accepted the terms. This was quite the topic in our home between Father and Son.  My husband felt quite strongly that the first car should be a good, reliable and safe car, had wanted to be part of that decision and planned to throw in a contribution to help pay for it.  Our Son just wanted a car, so he went with his Mom’s boyfriend’s suggestion and got this other car.  His Father was very displeased with this entire situation, not only did he think a resurrected car from a junkyard was a bad idea, he was also hurt to be shut out of the entire thing and that his advice was disregarded.

Our Son drives up in his “new” car and before I could take a breath, my husband stops me and says “don’t you go out there and tell him what a nice car he has…I know you, and you’re too nice…so just say nothing.  Ok.  I said, I won’t be nice. So I say nothing…but it was hard not to throw him a bone. Next morning we’re getting ready for work and the kids for school and our Son sheepishly sticks his head through our bedroom door and calls my name.  He said quietly…”Christy, do you have any jumper cables”?  Ok, I really had to work hard not to bust out laughing, but the poor kid looked so pitiful, so instead I said “Oh, bud, I don’t, I’m sorry.  He looked up at me and said, my car won’t start.  I’m going to have to ask Dad, huh?  I told him to go on and fix himself some cereal or something and let me talk to his Dad.  I go find my husband and relay to him the situation and I said our Son was in a spot.  I told my husband that he might consider that nothing he could say at this point would make our Son feel any worse than he was already feeling, did he think he could go help a fellow out?  My husband muttered something under his breath…something about buying a piece of  $%^# then he threw on a shirt and went out to help.  When it was all said and done I asked my husband if they got the thing started and how it had gone…he said after a while they got it running and that it had been pretty quiet between them.  I told my husband I thought he’d done a good thing by not pouring salt into that open wound!

Do you know the next morning, same exact thing.  Unbelievable.  I just looked at our Son this time and he said, “I know…”

While our Son was at home (he’s away at college now) during his driving career he went through 3 cars before he finally got the one he drives now, which seems to be decent.  His Grandfather’s car, my late husband’s car, then the lemon.  He hit things, tore bumpers off; the lemon was actually held together in the front by bungee cords.  My husband said that year as we were Christmas shopping we should get him a pack of them as a stocking stuffer!  We were always so happy to have him parked in front of our house!  To give him a break, most all of us at one time, had a jalopy.  His was so bad though, that one time his Mother’s neighbor, who was trying to do a quick sale on his home, actually came to her door and asked if the car could be moved during the time he showed his house….I thought THAT was funny!

Lessons Learned

• When it comes time for the kids to drive, it would be nice if there was agreement between the parents on which car to get, from where and when and how it is to be funded.  It would be helpful if it were settled on before the kid starts to have a conniption fit about actually getting a car.
• Sometimes the Step Mom just has to be a buffer.
• There will be times with your kids where you just don’t have to say anything.  There is no good to come from rubbing their noses in things.
• It is my advice not to go shopping for a car in a salvage yard.  Experience has taught me that if a car is taken there, it should be a one way trip!

Good Step Mom

I have never seen anything like the way these kids blow through a Christmas morning.

For me and maybe for many of you, from Thanksgiving night all the way to Christmas, it was all about anticipation.  We were asked to write a Christmas list, which we painstakingly did.  We were asked once, and we proudly gave it to our parents to mail to Santa, later we just gave it to our parents.  We used a combination of ideas from TV, catalogs (especially the Sears Wishbook) and comparing notes with our friends.  When Christmas Eve came, we couldn’t get to bed early enough and didn’t dare come out of there, or peek. That morning we awoke to find our folks already up, then after oooing and awing over the sight of all the presents and toys under the tree, we passed out gifts, one of us always playing Santa’s elf.  We took turns opening our gifts so everyone could see, hugged the neck of whoever had given us the gift if they were there, said thank you and then set about playing with and wearing our new stuff.  It took all morning and it was great. This ain’t how Christmas with these kids goes.

The first thing I noticed that was different was how many times they were asked for a Christmas wish list.  I tell you, usually so many times I began to think well the heck with you guys!  Then when we finally got them, I accompanied their Dad and watched him ache and pain over the selection of every single item.  Then he just threw in extras; things he thought they’d like…he really worked hard at it.  We spent a back breaking amount of time wrapping, well I did.  This man kept a tally, each child had to have an equal number of boxes because these kids actually count the boxes. That floored me.   Ok.  So the first Christmas I was around, my job was to corral the girls, sleep with them in their room and not let them out, no matter what, while Dad put things together.  The second difference I noticed was that these kids were determined not to go to bed and did everything they could to sabotage their Dad and blow their own surprises.  I wasn’t really amused.  As we went through the next few years I guess what took me so aback was all the prep time…all the shopping, painstaking wrapping and careful placement of the boxes underneath the tree, not to mention the stockings stuffed with goodies that were so heavy they had to be put under the tree rather than be hung from the mantel… then between the three kids, they would rip through like 15-20 gifts each (no fooling).  I would literally watch them toss a gift, TOSS it, to get to the next one.  There was no particular order most of the time though their Dad tried to instill some, there were cursory thank yous…maybe…and in about 30 minutes it was done.  They would play for maybe about 5 minutes and then go to their Mother’s house, gift wrap still whirling in the air.  Now the fact that they have to exit like that isn’t their fault of course…remember we have “the arrangement”…it just sort of adds to the shock factor.  This is how Christmas goes with these guys…pretty disheartening to me.  Their Dad seems to take it all in stride but I always wondered….is he thinking what I’m thinking?

The kids Dad comes from a large family,  and at times there just wasn’t the money to do up Christmas or Birthdays I am sure the way his parents would have liked.  Still my husband has a hard time celebrating his own birthday or his own Christmas, but goes over board trying to do for his own children, no matter what. He IS Father Christmas. So to him, this all has to be sort of a buzz kill I would think.

Then, the amount of exchanges to me was unbelievable.  Now maybe I’m wrong…I know part of the practical side of gift giving is that you want people to enjoy what you give them, certainly you want things to fit and you want them to work and not be broken.  I get that.  That’s not what I’m necessarily talking about here. I’m talking about just the flat “I don’t like it” kind of returns.  Other than things they had specifically asked for and described to us to a T so there would be no possibility of getting it wrong, they didn’t like much of ANYTHING.  Christmas morning, as they went through the gifts, they would start creating piles, all the things that for one reason or another just didn’t work for them.  When I was a kid…yeah I got the yearly pair of too small silk pajamas from my Grandma that I never wore.  Yeah I got the yearly hand knitted ugly colored booties that I never wore either knitted by her good friend Dot, and occasionally something just so off base it wasn’t even funny.   Always just said thank you. And down through the years these things just became little personal funnies I could count on….but never in my wildest imagination did it occur to me to tell that person I didn’t like it or it didn’t fit or it was the wrong color.  To me, the fact people thought enough of me to remember me at Christmas time was special.  I sure wasn’t going to hurt their feelings for love nor money by letting them know I wasn’t happy with what they had given me.  Just kind of snubbing gifts wasn’t something I had ever experienced before.  I could understand if we were talking about the booties Aunt Edna knitted I guess…but we weren’t, we were talking things their immediate family members had bought for them.  I don’t like it, its the wrong color, its ugly, I’ll never wear it…  And it isn’t just us…they do this to each other as well. I have just never seen anything like it. How discouraging to the gift givers.  In sharing this with some of my peers who are also parents, some of them know exactly what I’m talking about and their kids are the same way.  So it isn’t just our kids….it seems to be generational.

I know these people are from a generation that thinks microwave ovens are slow and that they are always looking for what’s next…go, go, go!  I get that a gift should make you happy.  But when did we stop teaching that people’s feelings are important too? As they email and text their way into social incompetence, I feel obliged to point out to them when they are being insensitive, self centered little boobs.  This is one of the reasons they are fine with gift cards, but that to me is so impersonal.  What thought goes into buying you that?  None…no humanity…just like all the other modes of communication they are growing up using.

Their Dad just always acts like oh well…you don’t want things to just sit in a closet and never be used…and I know he’s right..it’s just irksome to me!  So now it still isn’t like I was used to or their Dad was I’m sure, but I have at least shamed them through the years into slowing down a little, they do acknowledge their gifts, they do write thank you cards when appropriate, they do still have a pile of exchanges but as their tastes have grown and developed, now its not as much that this tennis shoe has a green stripe on the left side and not on the right side, but legitimately because something doesn’t fit or is a duplicate…which makes me feel better.  I had a chat with them once about appreciating people’s efforts and feelings and about the art of giving and receiving.  It hopefully caused them to at least think about it.  Whole thing just makes me kind of sad for us all.

Lessons Learned

• It ain’t like it used to be folks, but these kids have got to learn social graces. If they don’t, to be real honest,  I’m scared.  Heck they are going to be in charge of us all one day.  Lord have mercy.
• Kids have to be taught the joy of giving.  It just doesn’t happen apparently.  I think maybe my husband is right.  He said in so many ways parents today bend over backwards to make sure the kids have this and that and get to do this and that…so he said really, we have shown them that in fact, it is all about them.  Well, if that’s what we have taught them then that’s what they believe and it’s not pretty.
• Another trap I think divorced parents fall into sometimes is whose going to out do who. I don’t think this is necessarily done consciously, but both want to be the better parent and sometimes the accumulation of stuff, is mistaken for being the best parent.  Don’t fall into that trap.  Have traditions, start traditions…teach them what it’s all about.  I guarantee you that years from now when they are grown they will not remember the xbox so much or the UGGS, but they will remember being introduced to egg nog, sitting by a fire, watching Christmas movies, putting puzzles together…watching it snow.  They will remember the special traditional Christmas meals, the home made cookies, that their Step Mom turned them onto snow cream and helped them make gingerbread houses from scratch! Don’t allow your guilt based feelings to cause you to unintentionally shortchange your kids.  It isn’t about the stuff…it’s about the time you spend with them and how you spend it.
• I get that there are generational differences.  These guys are smarter, younger than we were and I marvel at their abilities sometimes.  From my experience I have also found them often to be impatient, insensitive and self centered.  I think we have a responsibility to, while striving to keep up with their current reality, also ground them in traditions and ways of the past…to save them a little bit from themselves.
• Gift cards are certainly easier…they like them and they won’t return em. If that’s what we all go to though…I think that’s sad.  To me there’s no better feeling than having listened for clues all year, then going out and getting that one special thing…to have the person receive it and just be blown away…I love that…and you won’t feel that from giving a gift card to someone…and it makes me so sad to think they won’t know how that feels.

• Try to pump some of the joy of Christmas back into them. How very unfortunate for them if we don’t.

Good Step Mom

It’s storming right now, so I am reminded of something that happened one stormy night a while back, this is a good one.  It has to do with growing up, responsibility and parental endurance.

So our eldest Son started working at a pancake house and good for him.  He met there, a girl whose name escapes me and is irrelevant to the story anyway…but this particular night, our girls had an after school play cast party to go to, their Dad had a softball game to play and I was shuttling everyone to and fro.  It aso looked like a good possibility of severe weather and in the middle of all this, our Son asked if this girl could come over,  This would mean that they would be home alone for a while together.  They had just met and I didn’t like it, neither did my husband but he told him it would be ok.  He also told him that how he handled this would determine whether or not he could be trusted in this regard in the future.  So leaving our Son in charge of the house, himself, his guest and our pets…off we went.

In those days the children, especially the girls, were terrified of storms.  I guess, according to their Dad, their Mother has a fear of them and unfortunately passed this on to the kids.  So here I am, I drop my husband off at the ball field, go get the cupcakes we have for the girls’ contribution to the party, go get them and take them to the party.  On the way the sky is looking pretty ominous.  Their Mother calls and tells them she is driving to the city the storm is heading for and of course got them completely upset.  Great.  So now I’m driving around calming them down and finally I do and I drop them off at their party.  I then get a call from hubby that he’s the only one who showed up for his game, can I come get him.  So I head to the ball field to pick him up, he’s drenched and we head for the house as we have a while before we need to pick up the girls.  Now it gets good.

We pull into the driveway and are headed off at the pass by our Son.  He informs us that one of our dogs is missing.  One of our Goldens..an over weight, very sweet dog but not the sharpest knife in the drawer if you follow my meaning.  So we ask the usual questions you would ask…when did you last see her, when did you discover her missing, where all have you looked etc…so my husband, already soaked, takes off in the thunder and lightening on his bicycle and I get in my car and we canvass the area for a while.  I decided to eventually check back at the house and when I pull up I see my husband’s bike on it’s side in the front yard.  Before I can make it to the front door, my husband bursts out the door, takes a look at me and says… go see what our Son has been up to.  He takes back off on his bike.  oh…kay…..

I go into the house and there sits an aggitated son, arms crossed, scowling at the TV set mumbling under his breath.   I sat down and asked what was going on..and as he turned toward me I saw it…one big fat hickey on the side of his neck.  A hickey…I wanted to throw up! I got this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach…but nevermind that…He starts in on me, we were just kissing..I shot back that it looked to me as if it had been more than that..and now I say things I’m not particularly proud of…but aside from clarifying for him that the first time he’s left home alone with a girl, this is what happens, and that it would be a cold day far far down South before he would be trusted in that way again…I also went on to say that (I refer to her from this point forward as hickey girl) would not be welcome back for a while and certainly not without us being home.  I confirmed what I thought I knew, that they had known each other for about 3 or 4 days.  I think I said a thing or two about respect…for himself…for our home, for our directives…and then I said don’t even get me started about what I think of a girl who does such things with a guy she doesn’t even know.  I leave him and head back outside to sit for a bit and reflect.

As I sit there, I cool down and remember what it was like to be a teenager.  I went back in and apologized to our Son if I said anything out of line, but explained to him that I cared about him, how he turns out, his reputation and all of that..and I would continue to let him know when I thought he was messing up.  I said that now, because he hadn’t had his mind on making sure he let the dogs in and out properly, and had his mind on fooling around with hickey girl, one of our pets was missing out in a bad storm and we might never find her; that he’d have to live with that should this be the outcome.  I did also say that if he liked this girl, I was sorry if I seem to have over reacted, but that he had to try to understand that he is our responsibility, any girls he had over were also our responsibility and he had work to do to regain trust.  He was quiet and sulky…but I think he appreciated that I came back in and said what I said.

I went back outside, checked my watch to see how long before we had to pick up the girls and tell them about the dog, sat on my bumper and called my husband to check on him to see if there was any sign of our missing canine.  Mind you, this entire time it is severe thunderstorm weather.  The thought of her lost out there in that alone was terrible.  What we were also up against was that not too long before this, we had been forced to have this dog’s sister put to sleep.  She turned out to have had a very advanced case of thyroid cancer, she was only 3 years old and it made us all very sad so we were still smarting from that.  Neither one of us wanted to now have to tell the girls that we’d lost another dog.  Problem is, when riding around and around looking for a lost animal…it isn’t usually as if they are sitting in one spot…. still, waiting for you to find them.  You’re hunting a moving target,  It’s not a hopeful situation.  I go get the girls, my husband comes in and explains to them that our dog has gone missing.  There were tears as we expected, our Son..after getting on his bike and riding around a while too, had put himself to bed…we put the girls to bed (oh and this is a school/work night by the way) and my hubby went back out to look for her some more.  I went outside after a while, sat back out on the bumper of my car where apparently I do some of my best thinking…I called and called for her, it was getting late and the weather wasn’t improving.  Then I had a thought and I dialed up my husband.  I asked him if he’d looked in the back yard.  He said he’d looked back there; that he’d left the light on and the roll up door open in case she somehow got back into the yard, she could get in and out of the weather.  I said that I realized it was a morbid thought, but had he checked the pond back there.  He said no, he hadn’t.  I had him stay on the line and I walked around to the back of the house to the pond.  It was dark, but I looked as best I could and didn’t see any sign of her.  As I stood up, I heard something…it came from inside the unfinished part of the basement where my husband had left the door up.  I’m on the phone still, I follow the sound to underneath the staircase where we store our luggage.  And what do you think I see?  I see a big pink nose and two big brown eyes…as I get closer I can see that she’s under there, apparently she was afraid and had gone in there for cover but had knocked suitcases down blocking her exit.  I get closer. and I see that fat sausage shaped body…whole hind end wagging….I said to my husband, I found her, come on home.  In searching and calling for this animal for most of 6 hours at this point, it never once occured to her to sound off for the love of God.

So I bring her in and the first thing I do is wallk her into our Son’s room…he opens one eye, looks at me and I said… somebody wanted to let you know she’s home…and I let the dog lean up on his bed.  He gave her a rub on the head and a hug, looked up at me and whispered thanks.  I then took her upstairs and woke up the girls to let them know she was home and ok.  They were glad to see her of course.  My husband got home, patted her on the head and said dumb dog.  None of the kids had any real appreciation for what their Dad did that night and for how long.  He and I sat back and had a couple of good stiff drinks after all that.  Heck with the hour…What a night.  We left the hickey girl situation alone, and in about a week they were over each other.

Lessons learned

• When the time comes and one of the kids asks if a “friend” can come over and it means they’ll be alone, if you don’t feel good about it, say no.  Probably because we were in a hurry that night, we didn’t, and you see how that worked out for us!
• If its storming and you have things going on, maybe you should just stay home.
• If you say something to your kids when you’re upset and after you think about it, you wish you’d not said it at all or at least have said it differently…apologize and go correct the situation.  By doing so not only do you gain their respect by admitting when you are wrong, but by showing them you can do that, you set a good example for them that hopefully they will follow in their own relationships.
• Remember they are kids…and take it easy on them. They are going to screw up…didn’t you?  I did.  :)

Good Step Mom

Ahh the girls, where to begin.  Well let’s start by saying that we have two the same age.  They are twins.  They are not identical; in fact they are as different as night and day.  One of their favorite gags is when in public we introduce them as twins and some poor sap says…Oh, fraternal? The girls straight faced say no, we’re identical! I did some reading about twins after they came into my life, and I think they may be what’s referred to as “mirror” twins.  One is right hand dominant, one left; one is artistic, one quantitative; one average sized, one petite; one loves potatoes, one hates potatoes…All the way down the line almost as if by design they are complete opposites.  Their Mother is a twin too which I always thought was interesting.

One of the first things I noticed with these two was their absolute demand for total equality.  I don’t know if it had always been that way, or whether it was the actions of the parents that started it, or fed it.  Maybe it was a little of all those.  From the pictures I have seen of them in their youngest years, once they weren’t babies any more, they weren’t always dressed the same, nor did they have the same toys in their hands all the time.  I do think that 2 kids the same age or even close in age are going to be this way to some extent; a little natural jealousy.  I also think it was probably compounded by the actions of the parents at times.  For example, I was told a story about how their Dad took them to a breeder to get a dog.  They already had a dog and 2 cats in the house.  The dog they had already, had always kind of been considered the boy’s dog, he got her when the girls were born.  Their Dad thought it would be nice to get the girls one.  The family was newly divorced, they had just lost a pet their Dad had for years…so he thought it would kind of lighten things up to have a puppy around.  When they got there, one of the girls took a shining to a particular puppy.  I guess the breeder wasn’t much help as I guess she said something about getting 2 pups.  But rather than stand firm and insist that they settle together on the dog they wanted, he caved and brought home 2 puppies, one for each girl. They didn’t have time to devote to care and training of 2 puppies and the house paid the price.  Things like this I think probably, although unwittingly, reinforced the girls “tit for tat” mentality.

According to my husband, the more petite girl was always partial to spending time with him, the other girl would come and get her affection when she wantd to, but then was off to do her own thing.  She wasn’t as interested as a baby, in sitting still and cuddling with Dad.  Somewhere there developed a pretty hefty sense of competition between these girls…for everything…From my observation I think there might have been a bit of favoring of one girl over the other by Dad,  probably simply because she had been a more affectionate baby.  Anyway, what you did for one you had to do for the other…no deviations, no exceptions, no way.  I had a hard time with this sometimes.  The extent of it to me, is overboard.  It is so pervasive, even today, that at times I am just in awe of it…not good awe…just awe.  I really think it is time they out grow it.  Example.  They are now at the age of 15.  The girls are on separate soccer teams, different schedules.  I pick one up from a school activity, take her to get something from Sonic …then drop her off at her next activity.  She leaves her cup in the holder in the front seat, I thought nothing of it.  My plan was to pick up our other girl, ask her where she’d like to go and also take her to grab a snack before dropping her off at her next activity.  When I pull up to pick our daughter up she opens the front passenger door and there is no hello, there is only a very loud and very nasty…SHE GOT TO GO TO SONIC???  I know my blood pressure shot up to an unhealthy level and I let her know in no uncertain terms that I didn’t appreciate that behavior AT ALL and that not only did she owe me an apology, but she needed to get a grip on her completely over the top jealousy when it comes to her sister.  I wanted to snatch her bald….but instead…be the adult…right?…I told her what my plan had been and told her that she had absolutely killed my desire to do something nice for her that day.  I went ahead and took her to get food because she can’t do sports hungry; but I didn’t want to and to be honest she deserved to go hungry after that little stunt.

So we have one girl who has always gotten good grades in school, has always enjoyed reading, who gets totally engrossed in watching television…is opinionated, head strong, extremely sensitive, works very hard to excel in athletics…and is also usually very dependable, loving and sweet too…and who happens to have this major chip on her shoulder when it comes to her sister.  Now about the other girl.  Very artistic, very talented in that way, often a more mature conversationalist than her sister, has typically struggled more in school, I have never seen her read a book other than while doing homework, much of the time she is very sarcastic, she’s pretty self centered much of the time, she is athletically gifted, she sort of puts things in her sister’s face every time she gets a chance.  She is also often the voice of reason with her sister and is depended upon to keep her somewhat grounded.  They are both good kids and they are my kids, but they are very different from one another and a challenge at times.

When I first came on the scene they were 10.  They still liked stuffed animals and played with dolls.  The oldest (by 15 minutes) the artistic one…as she has started to develop, started picking out the shortest skirts, skimpiest tops, brightest colored bras…grown up under pants and the tiniest of bikinis.  Dad is so thrilled!  The younger girl, the head strong one…she liked big old oversized floppy Tshirts, sweat pants…then as she started to develop some curves she had to deal with, and as she started to turn the head of a boy or two…gravitated to low slung very tight jeans and tops that accentuate the positive, if you follow my meaning, Dad is so happy….again!

Another thing I noticed is that they fight over and about everything.  If not for the fact that there is objective evidence by way of a calendar to prove to them that in fact it is Tuesday, they would disagree on what day of the week it is.  Fights over rooms, blow dryers, curling irons, flat irons, makeup, food, boys, clothes, sports, gatorade, friends, who rode in the front seat last, who vacuumed last time, who emptied the litter box like…ever…whose dish is in the sink, who used the last of the toilet paper, who stole whose cold soda from the fridge blah blah blah you get the idea as I could go on and on.  At the same time I say this, they are also very close.  They sing and dance together, try to figure out popular song lyrics together, ride piggy back on each other; it’s interesting.

I have watched them go from Barbie dolls to computer games, from those to cell phones, laptops and ipods.  They text and facebook..they have new “boyfriends” as often as I change shoes. They use the word date differently than we did.  They are dating so and so now….I asked once how you can date when you aren’t old enough to go anywhere and have no money to do anything.  They educated me and I figured out that this just means they are what we used to call “going with” a guy.  I have seen them go from their little girl gatherings to going out to eat and to movies with their friends, to dances with boys.  Time is marching on.

Thing about the girls in comparison to the way their brother was at their age, is that they have their own version of moodiness and it is also really really hard to take at times.  They get catty.  They can be manipulative and dishonest.  They must think we are completely stupid and don’t know anything sometimes.  They tell on each other.  Girls I have noticed must know why…why…why…and debate everything.  They get disrespectful at times with the things they say and how they say them.  They have drama, almost always something, if it isn’t one of them its the other or simultaneous!  You add all this together with their competitive nature with each other…which seems to be evolving but also escalating and well…boy howdy!  They are good girls…just teenaged girls…they accepted me, are very loving to their new baby brother, they are much better with respect to manners and all that then they had been, I think they get it, they seem to be involved and engaged and they have friends.  For the most part they stay out of trouble.  They are healthy.  For these things we are thankful.

They are both turning out to be very pretty girls and I am looking forward to seeing who they become.  I am proud of their Dad for both the degree he’s trying to let go and the degree of control he still insists on maintaining over them.  It’s got to be hard.  I can see them maturin, having more consideration of other’s feelings, taking their big sister role more and more seriously.  Having enough self confidence to insist the guys they hang with treat them a certain way.  They are entering High School this fall, will be driving, will be looking for jobs and so on.  I think they will always remain close to their Dad. Daddy’s girls you know.  I try my best to be a positive influence with them.  I hope for them the same I do for their big brother…that they remember family, and be happy , productive people.

Lessons Learned

• Raising one girls is a challenge, raising two girls is two challenges.
• There is a certain amount of natural jealousy and competitiveness between siblings I know.  Try not to feed it.  The things you do in the early years you may all pay for later.
• I think parents do have favorites in a multiple child family.  But if you think about it, I think who that is varies.  Each child has strengths.  One may be more dependable than the other, one more mature, one might have a better sense of humor than the other, one be better at ball, one a better swimmer, one more brave at heart than the other,  If you play to and celebrate the differences, then every child gets to be a favorite at one time or another.  As long as your rules and the enforcement of those rules and your love are consistent you’ll be in good shape!
• You won’t always get how they dress, your folks didn’t get how you dressed either.  I do think you need to do as I have seen my husband do with our daughters.  Not too short, not too sheer, not too much makeup, you have to dress appropriately for where you are going and for the weather and none of this is negotiable.
• Let them argue, they will anyway.  You can’t short circuit it and probably shouldn’t anyway.  Just don’t let them go to fists, pull hair or draw blood.
• Girls are definitely different to raise than boys.  In many ways they are, in my experience, more difficult.  However, for all their complexities…these will probably be the ones in your family who help the connectedness, help take care of everybody…who most likely will continue to come around as you get older, who will bring covered dishes to your pot lucks, who will get married and bring their children around and keep the energy going.  Bless them too.

My husband first came into this boy’s life when the boy was about 2 1/2 years old, having met, dated and ultimately married his Mother.  The boy’s biological Father lived in the area but was not involved.  So my husband is the only Father this boy ever really had.  After years and years of struggle with the biological Father throwing road blocks in the way, he was finally able to officially adopt him when he was 12 years of age.

When I first met him he was 14 years old.  This may seem totally trivial and stupid, but that night when I was first invited to their home, I was lead into the living room and was left there alone for a minute.  I had a seat, there were toys, book bags…all kinds of stuff in the living room.  He came into the room, sheepishly said Hi and I said “I’m sorry if I sat in  your spot.”  He smiled and said no that’s ok, I can sit over here.  You know, he and I hit it off right from the start.  I can’t help but think that my deferring to him that very first night helped set the tone between the two of us.  Let’s face it, as eldest child, it was important that he and I get along.  He also had a great deal of influence over his sisters…still does.  I would go over there, and make football food on a Saturday or Sunday, and before I knew it, he was bringing a blanket over and flaking on the sofa with me.  I think in his way, he was showing acceptance.   More than once as I pulled away from the house , he would run after my car all the way down the street.  It was cute.  It only lasted for a short while, but this is how we started.

We got engaged, all moved in together and he soon changed from this fairly sweet boy into someone I didn’t know. Caught him cascading right into teenagedom!!! There were periodic moments when that nice boy would make a reappearance.  I missed him. We had moments when we were close.  The two of us chose a special song, and he took ballroom dancing lessons with me, we cha cha’d at the wedding.  I helped him out from time to time.  I helped him study a time or two, tried to shoot basketball and run a soccer ball  with him a time or two but he told me I was really bad.  I cooked for his team dinners, at his final soccer game in High School I went alone to make sure he was represented by family because his Father was out of town on business and we weren’t sure his Mother was going to make it.  She did, so I just stayed in the background, but I know he knew I was there. There were also some really tense times.  I’m not certain if all teenaged boys go through this kind of thing,  but from the age of about 15 until 17…right before he left for college, I would not have given you a nickel for him.   It started kind of slowly, less and less time spent upstairs with us and more time down in the dungeon by himself, increased video game play (war games), out of control text messaging against directives and at all hours, not speaking when spoken to, no thank yous for anything ever.  No efort to do anything for any of us on special occasions. We would travel to a different town to watch this kid play soccer, and I can’t tell you how many times we didn’t even get spoken to.  There were loud arguments between he and his Dad, his Dad trying to get across  to him that he was being totally disrespectful and we weren’t going to stand for it. There were times when he was this way in front of our friends and once even at my Bosses house where he said things to his Dad that to be honest, he deserved to be slapped in the mouth for.  He had stopped relating to his sisters in any positive way that we could detect.  The one thing I can say for him is that he did always have a job.  Although he had a few…was let go from each one, could have been the attitude, we were never really sure.  Things got so bad when he was at home, that finally my husband had a serious heart to heart with him and told him that if he couldn’t show respect for the rest of us, then it might be best if he just moved in permanently with his Mother.  He told him that the constant tension and bickering wasn’t healthy for the rest of the family.  Good for my husband I thought!  Our son’s response was “so, you’re kicking me out?”.  My husband repeated that he had a decision to make, plain and simple.  Join us, change the behavior or move out.

From that point forward we detected some change in our son.  He was getting out more, spending more time doing what he wanted to do, we barely saw him.  I wouldn’t say it was all moonbeams and sunshine after that, but he definitely started to make more of an effort.  It showed, and individualy I know that both my husband and I pulled him aside and told him we noticed and that his efforts were appreciated.

He graduated high school and moved out to go to college about 100 miles from where we live.  His High School graduation day was pretty rough for us, as he chose to spend it all with his Mother and exclude his Father.  Not even a call.  When we next heard from him he asked his Dad to pay for an activity he wanted to do.  Then later physically returned the graduation gift we had given him.  He moved out hardly taking anything and without too much to say.  My husband had a really hard time with this, so did I.  His Dad continues to lend a helping hand now and again, mostly of an advisory nature.  He’s been asked to pay for things, but declines most of the time.  There was just hardly ever any apparent gratitude for anything we did, as I see it the boy just flat has an entitlement issue.  I hope for his sake he grows out of it, because the real world doesn’t work that way, it doesn’t owe him anything.  Our eldest comes around once in a while now.  Usually to pick something up he needs or eat something.  Things are still strained between he and his Dad, it’s hard to see and even harder for me to keep my mouth shut.  To his credit he is doing well in school and is running a small business.  It is my hope that the longer he’s away, the more he realizes how fortunate he’s been to have his Dad in his life and that he’ll turn out to be a happy productive person.

Lessons Learned

• Boys are unique in their approach to bonding and in their relationship skills.  Bless them.  They aren’t very complicated.  It is how it is.  Enjoy them for who they are.  They have a different perspective on and approach to life…remember these are the same people who historically have foght wars, and gone to combat to defend their families and our way of life.
• The teenaged years are rough.  Maybe you’ll be lucky and your kids will just sail on through teenagedom with no stress and strain to the rest of your family…but I have found that all the patience you can muster will probably be called upon during this phase of their lives.  I tell my husband sometimes…no fair!  He had the luxury of knowing these kids from the time they were little guys…so as they test us, he can think back to what cute little things they were.  Me?  I don’t have that.  I just got pre teen and teen years.  No fair!
• I don’t know what it is about these video games now a days but I swear, the war games, the isolation..it wasn’t helping.  I would suggest to do all you can to keep your teenager engaged with the rest of the family.  I think our son was showing increased aggression due to those games he was playing. I’ll always think that.
• There may be some very uncomfortable times ahead for your Son and husband.  Let it happen and butt out.  This is male to male relating and teaching that goes beyond the female experience and we shouldn’t try to short circuit it in my opinion.  I sense when I should just leave the room, and I think it’s probably appreciated.
• For us, we were willing to go so far, then we knew we just had to get tough.  Granted there are some folks who don’t have that second home to tell the kid to pack up and go to if they are making things miserable in yours; it’s called tough love though.  They need to get it or get on out.  The good of the many outweighs the good of the one.
• It passes.  There is light at the other end of the tunnel.  The light might shine brighter after they move out.
• After they leave home, you can’t control what happens, and you can’t force the relationship.  I like the “boomerang” theory.  Let em’ go.  If it’s meant to be, they’ll come back around, they’ll figure it out.  Try not to give back what you get while they are trying to figure it out either…again, be the adult.  It’s hard because that’s what you want to do and probably it’s what they deserve, but someone has to take the high road, and when it comes to your kids, that someone needs to be the parents.

This is something that will rear its head probably pretty early on in your relationship.  Kids can’t help it; whether because they like sharing dish and they are kind of gossipy by nature or whether it’s innocent…they are a conduit of information back and forth between their two homes.  Not that anyone necessarily has anything to hide, but not everything that happens in your home is something you want shared, whether you are the Step Mom or their Mother.

I never was sure where our eldest son came down on all this, from what I could tell, he only shared things that happened in one home or the other if he thought it would in some way benefit him to do so.  For example. if he wanted something, and Dad wasn’t for it, and he needed his Mother to side with him, from the almost inevitable communication from Mother to Dad that would occur, we determined that he would selectively share a completely one sided version of whatever it was that had happened while he was at our house.  After a while this died down, either because he got older, or because she finally realized that it couldn’t ALWAYS be him as the poor victim of his circumstance and us being the bad guys.  Our son never shared anything that happened at his Mother’s house and that’s fine and as it should be…it’s none of our business what goes on at her home as long as the kids are loved and taken care of which is certainly the case.

Now with the girls, it is a whole different story.  They tell lots of things about what goes on with Mother…so I’m sure its two way traffic.  One of our girls is worse than the other about this.  I love her, but she is just flat nosey.  Combine that with not being able to really discern when to and when not to share information as well as a great deal of difficulty keeping anything to herself, and you have a potential issue.  Most of the time these things shared are bland enough…maybe something they did, somewhere they went…something funny that their Mother said or did, sometimes its about something that happened at their Mother’s work, or about her boyfriends.  I don’t mean to imply she has more than one, but she’s normal and sometimes a relationship doesn’t work out, sometimes it does.  What I began to notice early on was one of the girls behavior when she would approach me as I sat at my desk, or be on the computer.  She would scan what she could see…what I was writing, what website I was on, read the e-mail I had up…it was obvious she was doing it.  I don’t like nosey…never have.. so I would call her out on it when she would do it.  Get a good look?  Can I help you with something?  You know, this is none of your business don’t you?  Then I noticed she would go through our stack of mail as it sat on the counter.  Mind you this was at a time when she was too young to get mail but for the occasional card.  I caught her doing that a few times and asked her what she was doing…she would say oh…just seeing if there is any mail for me.  Right.  I would catch her occasionally reading our opened mail; cards most the time but not always.  Things that didn’t have her name on them but someone elses.  When I would see her do that I called her out every time.  She used to ask to use my computer sometimes claiming it was faster than hers and it probably was…schoolwork, facebook whatever..but what she was also doing was going through my history looking to see which websites I was visiting .  Don’t know if she ever read my email….I would hope not.  See she’s nosey but she was never deceitful enough to really hide the fact that she was doing it…she’d say things and in essence tell on herself.  I had to have my husband install a password and lock my computer.  One was mine alone, the other password the kids set up so they could use it.  Again, not that I necessarily have anything to hide..I just do not like nosey and deserve some degree of privacy…same as everybody else.  When we began to shop for things together like cars, furniture and later houses…she always made sure she read the prices of everything.   My husband noticed this too, so we began to try to confine our shopping activity to days the kids were with their Mother.  I mean the harsh reality of it is that it is no one’s business what we pay for something, not the girls and in case it were shared, not their Mothers, just as it is none of our business what their Mother spends and on what she spends it.  We have spent enough time on this with this particular daughter that now, while I wouldn’t say she has overcome her nosiness, probably never will; she has thrown a saddle on it, at least she now asks if she can read something before she just does it.  She knows if something is addressed to the family she is welcome to help herself otherwise….no.  She has pretty much stopped the scanning behavior and after I called her out on looking through my computer, I told her I’d nixed that.  I think we’ve let her know how we feel about this and she’s better.  She also is getting to the age where she values her privacy so she understands better too.  I call her the informer,  She tells us lots of things….sometimes this is a good thing, because it helps us stay up with her life too…but it has to be tempered!

I think when kids live in two homes you’re going to have a certain amount of this…bound to happen.  But if you detect that your children may be sharing information of yours that’s personal…you have to talk to them and stop them from doing that.  Left unchecked, this is going to end up probably causing hard feelings for someone, or cause misunderstandings very likely and create an atmosphere of distrust for the child…which is no good.

Lessons Learned

• You and your husband have the right to some privacy.  Their Mother also has the right to some privacy.  It is in my opinion, something children need to be taught.
• If you expect privacy, to the degree you can and to the degree its safe, in my opinion you need also to honor it yourself. Kids also deserve it.
• Realize that if your child is prone to nosey behavior and you know has difficulty not sharing things…you can just go on ahead and count on that some things are being shared you may not want shared.  In our case, we just called her out on it, explained why things she was doing were wrong…and eventually it got better.
• Don’t accept them telling you details from their Mother’s life that you know good and well she wouldn’t want shared.  Don’t be hypocritical about this.  It isn’t acceptable either direction.

So now that I have kids…they come with stuff…and they come with friends…so I had to get used to their friends coming over.  Not so much our boy, occasionally he’d ask to go to a friend’s house and every now and again he’d have a buddy over.  The guys were easy…all they wanted was to play video games down in the basement, eat pizza rolls and sleep late the next day.  No sweat.  The girls however…partially because they are girls and partially because they are younger I guess, they hardly ever wanted to just have one friend over, they usually wanted to have a group of friends over.  Even though our house is an ok size, when you have 5, 6 or 7 young girls for an all nighter, it’s…well….noticeable!  I have to admit when at first faced with opening my home to a gaggle of little girls, it seem to me right up there with having a tooth extracted.  But my husband always seemed to take it all in stride.  One thing was that he grew up with a bunch of sisters and a baby brother….so his ability to drown it all out was a highly developed skill I admired but, coming from a 2 kid family myself, did not possess.  And of course, he wasn’t the one busy preparing for these visits, freaking out that the house needed to be tidied up first, making sure we had snacks, soda, breakfast foods for the next morning…Usually the girls wanted to have a theme party…the latest Disney movie…Hannah what’s her name…Camp Rock…whatever…They would make signs for the front door, advertising posters they would hang all over the house..sometimes I’d help out by picking up some theme paper plates, cups, napkins and such…We would relegte them to the basement and they would want to push all the furniture to the perimeter of the room so they would have room to dance and flip around…whatever they’d do down there.  They would stay up way too late and ultimately crash in their comforters and sleeping bags.  I was around for the occasional fill up of snack bowls….finding them this that or the other…whatever they needed.  When they were little I would always try to have some activity for them to do with their friends.  I’d save all my old make-up and nail polish and take it down to them so that they could do “make-overs” on each other.  Sometimes I would get poster board and we would bake and decorate cookies, especially at holiday time.  Sometimes I would just provide art supplies so they could make posters.  We would always have an assortment of pastries, cereal, fruit, juice and milk for them the next morning and one by one they would stumble up, eat and their folks would come get them.

As the girls got older, there have been fewer group sleep overs, fewer sleepovers period actually.  Now they are more concerned with where they can go hang out and what they can go do.  As angst out as I used to get, I look back now at those times fondly…it was kinda fun.

Lessons Learned

• The easy thing to do if your kids want to have these sleepovers is to just say no.
• Or, you can try to understand that these times, especially for girls, are important socially and things like this impact their popularity with the other kids…if you can help them have a few really cool little parties, they will remember you for that.
• I wish I had taken the time to appreciate what was happening more.  I was so busy helping them prepare…well… now that they have outgrown all this, I kind of miss it.  I hope you take more time to breathe, just sit back and enjoy these little gigglers, they really don’t stay that way very long

Good Step Mom

So after a little too much to drink the night before and therefore a bit of a rocky start, the plan was to leave the local B&B we had spent that first night in and hit the road early the next morning.  We were driving to Estes Park Colorado and wanted to get an early start.  We were staying for a week.  We had put some thought into what we were going to do with respect to the kids.  The girls had asked more than once why they couldn’t come along, and I suppose that would have been one way to go…selfishly I guess, I wanted my new husband to myself for just a little while.  I explained to the kids that usually a honeymoon was meant for the husband and the wife, as a private celebration of their launch into life together.  I told them that we’d take a family Honeymoon later, which we did after a couple of years.  We arranged on our wedding night for the kids’ Aunt to take the girls to a hotel and stay the night, where they could swim, stay up too late, watch movies, order room service…whatever.  Her son came to our place to stay with our oldest son…to hang out, eat junk food, play video games…guy stuff.  The morning we were to leave, I forget what it was now, but my husband had forgotten something back at the house and insisted we had to go by on our way out of town.  This was not, I repeat not, a good idea.  To this day I’m not really sure if he actually forgot something or whether he was having his own kind of separaton anxiety.  Anyway, we all came to regret it.  What happened was, the girls unfortunately were already back home, and seeing him got them all riled up and emotional.  So as we try now to drive away we have these two 12 year old girls out in the front yard, in the cold, crying hysterically, physically clinging to their Dad, going on and on and on as if I was taking him away and they were never going to see him ever again.  Great start, and there I sat in the car feeling like the evil one.

It didn’t end until some 9 or 10 hours later as the phone calls finally began to slow down and everyone calmed down.  All the way from Kansas to Colorado my husband’s phone rang the entire time as the girls begged and pleaded for him to turn around and come back.  My husband, trying to console the girls, felt bad…so he kept answering and kept trying to convince them all was well.  It was completely over the top.  So much for a nice drive.

We had a very nice time on our Honeymoon.  We talked to the kids every day to catch up, each day they got better.  I think they finally decided they weren’t being totally abandoned after all.

Funny thing happened upon our return. We had the kids that weekend, so we picked up right where we had been when we left.  Up until the point that we got married,  the entire time we lived together, my husband and our son set up downstairs and the girls and I shared the main level.  Again, he was concerned that we do this right; he was always mindful of what kind of example we were setting for the kids.  That first night after we got back, he naturally moved upstairs with me and my room became our room.  He was all up under the comforter still asleep that next morning, and one of the girls came into our room (I hope you aren’t operating under the illusion that you are ever going to have privacy again!) and said Christy, where’s Dad?  I said he’s still asleep, and she said no he’s not, I just checked downstairs and he’s not down there.  I pointed to her Dad on the other side of “our” bed and she sort of looked over, then looked at me as her eyes widened and the light bulb went on…and she said…OHHHHH!   Funny!

The kids at some point, fairly quickly after we were married, were concerned with what they should call me; they didn’t know what I expected.   I asked them what they wanted to call me…an absolutely loaded question with this group.  They gave it a second of thought and said how about Christy.  I told them I thought that was just fine.  I took this same approach when it came to my parents.  I mean, here these kids were 11 and 15…is it right to expect them to just start addressing people they really didn’t know all that well as Grandma and Grandpa?  Some people might feel differently and strongly the other way, but I took their lead on it.  This brings up another thing I personally sort of went back and forth on and that was… how I should refer to them.  Introduce them and speak of them as my kids or my Step kids?  I thought about their Mother and what she might think if she heard me refer to them as my children.  I thought about the kids and whether it would make them uncomfortable if I did, like it would be a dig at their Mother somehow.  Then I started thinking how it would feel, if I were them, and I was always introduced as a Stepchild.  If we were to ever have children of our own, would that differentiation and separation cause hard feelings?  Was is necessary?  I kept coming back to family is family.  I talked to my husband about it and he agreed, family is family…so that’s it, I call them my kids, refer to them in public as such and introduce them to people this way.  We only explain they are my Step Children if the situation warrants it for whatever reason.  And…I know by the smile on their faces when I refer to them this way,  that for us, this was the way to go.

Lessons Learned

• If you marry a man with young children, there will come a time whey they realize everything has changed.  I know that the girls’ hysterics the day after our wedding was really acting out both of fears they had and the relization that their Dad now had a new wife, the family dynamic was going to change.  It would never be the way it had been and the unknown is scary.  As far as their behavior that day, I understood my new husband was in a heck of a spot, but he should have found a way to stop it.  Maybe enlisted the help of his sister, or something like that.  I think by not finding a way to shut it down, he unwittingly kept the negativity going.  Sometimes you just have to force an issue for the sake of everybody.
• Remember this is a huge adjustment for all of you.  Help them along.  Pretty soon they’ll adjust to the fact that you have a special relationship with their Father, one that doesn’t replace theirs, but one that is important in it’s own right.
• Think about things like how you want them to address you and how you will refer to them.  I think regardless of the age of the children…even grown ones.  This may seem like not that big a deal, but I think it is.  I should have given it thought before I married their Dad.
• You may be in for some acting out of your own in various ways as you settle in as a new family.  It’s not personal, really it isn’t.  They just need reassurance….most of it I think stems from insecurity of what this new life means for them.  Give it time.

Good Step Mom

I eloped with my late husband, so I’d never had a wedding before.  I thought it would be nice to have one and it was important to my fiance’ that ours be a union recognized by his church.  We knew this was going to be a special time for us and we wanted the kids to be a part of it.  The girls were already talking about their dresses early on.   I asked them to be brides maids and their Dad asked the oldest, his son, to be best man.  The kids accepted their roles in the wedding and the planning began.  I am certain many brides to be have a lovely experience with all their planning.  I didn’t.  Everything seemed to go wrong.  It wasn’t funny then and you know, it isn’t all that funny now.

We planned a fall wedding.  I chose my colors, took a couple of my girlfriends and we, along with the girls, went dress shopping.  My only desire was that everyone feel pretty in the dress she selected and that they coordinate. The girls had never been through anything like this, all the attention…standing up on risers, trying on all those fancy dresses, having people fuss over them.  My girlfriends found their dresses fine, the twins…well the one who was normally so agreeable dug her heels in and wouldn’t wear the color I wanted her to, which matched the dress her sister had already found that we all liked.  Wouldn’t do it.  I think the other girl saw the look of despair on my face…we were about to have to start all over.  This one, the one who usually pouted and acted up when she didn’t get her way, actually offered to switch dresses, to one that was the same color as the one her sister wanted to wear.  I pulled her aside and told her that I didn’t know why she had done that, but I would be forever grateful that she did and I wouldn’t forget it.

We were required to meet with the Priest, take a pre-marital questionnaire and attend a marriage class…which we did.  I had a crash course in the meaning of the symbolism in a typical Catholic wedding.  My fiance’ had to have his first marriage annuled, that went ok although they told us there was a chance the process wouldn’t be complete in time for the wedding. Great.  The date we had originally wanted for the wedding had been taken, so we chose another date….would we now have to push to the next month? It worked out but barely.

My original engagement ring was too big.  This broke my heart, I wanted to keep THAT ring…the one he had put on my hand Christmas Day!  Because it was a designer ring, it couldn’t be sized, they had to make me a new one.  I wanted to be married with the same ring I was presented with when I was asked to be married.  I had to get over it.  They said it would take 6-8 weeks.  There I was, newly engaged and instead of having a ring to flash , I just had to explain…over and over and over why I had a bare ring finger.  Oh well….I set about designing a wedding band for the kids’ Dad.  It was perfect and I just knew he’d love it.  The jeweler told me it would take the same 6-8 weeks, it would be close but he would make it happen.  Weeks later, when his ring came in, the jeweler called me and said he had some bad news, the ring had been made wrong.  It wasn’t what I designed.  What?  I mean, when you choose to be in the business of helping people with things wedding related, there is no room for error.  How does this happen?  I asked him to make it right.  It arrived less than a week before our wedding.

My girlfriends and I went dress shopping for me.  After several stores and hours, I found it.  One day, not bad!  You know you’ve found it when your gal pals start crying when you come out of the dressing room in it.  It was from sort of a Hoity Toity shop in a neighboring town.  The shop dress was too small, so they needed to order one to fit me.  They said it would take about 6 months.  I should have had plenty of time.  After about 4 months I began to call and check on it and all they ever asked me was when I had ordered it.  When I would answer that question, rather than actually look into it, they would simply reply to me that it was too soon to expect it to be in.  They would let me know when it arrived.  After the 6 month mark came and went, I contacted them again, and they gave me some story about the designer’s Mother being ill, and that he was horribly behind.  I understood things happen, and continued to check with them.  Finally, it became obvious that something was very wrong.  The truth, though they never owned up to it, was that they had not turned my order in when they were supposed to, not until I started calling and calling, THEN they ordered.  My wedding was coming and it looked like I was going to be in blue jeans.  I was beside myself, My Mother was furious.  She urged me to march in there, demand that they take that shop version of the dress to their seamstress, rip it open, see if it could be let out….do that so I had a backup dress and I wasn’t paying one penny for any of that.  AND if my dress made it, they would throw in the alterations just because. I did, and they did.  Go Mom! The dress did make it, three whole days before the wedding. After alterations, I literally got my dress the day before the wedding. OMG

I had planned to have 2 matrons of honor, my two best girlfriends.  Not to share too much detail here, but let’s just say that right before the wedding, one of my gal pals had a personal crisis which caused her to have to pull out of my wedding.  I was actually more worried about her than anything, but wasn’t looking forward to explaining over and over why someone was missing from my wedding party; programs had already gone to print.  So much had gone wrong by then, even if I had been so inclined to think more about my wedding party being complete than my friend, I didn’t have the energy.  True to form, a few days later, my wedding planner called to inform me that the good news was the programs were in, the bad news was that the programs had an error in them, my brother-in-law to be’s name was misspelled.  I could have a discount if I wanted to go with them. NO!  Or they would rush re-prints free of charge.  Well gee…no charge for re-prints, how generous of them.  I gambled and ordered the re-prints…it was an opportunity to have my girlfriend’s name removed too afterall.  The programs were delivered to the church the morning of the wedding…the morning of the wedding!!!   And bless my friends, a couple of the groomsmen…folded them at the church right before the service.

Both my fiance’ and his son agreed to take dance lessons with me so that we could know what we were doing when we danced solo for a couple of numbers at the wedding.  The kids Mother tried to run interference for her son to get him out of it, and the kid’s Mother and Father got into an argument about it…sheez….but we all ended up getting our lessons in after all.  Our eldsest son wanted to give his Dad a bachelor’s party as he had learned typically the best man makes such arrangements.  Once this dawned on him, he had run close on weekends left.  His Godfather advised him what all he needed to do.  Unfortunately the kid’s Mother wouldn’t give up her weekend so that he could give his Dad a party.  They had to settle with just the guys having dinner a couple of nights before the wedding.  I have no words about this that I will share…other than poor kid.

There were several smaller things that continued to go wrong, the Printer malfunctioned so we had trouble printing our invitations, the gifts for the groomsmen and bridal party ran late and almost didn’t make it in time, some of my family members I had really wanted to be there couldn’t make it, the car we planned on driving to our honeymoon destination in, was totaled because a kid rear ended me one day, just days before thhe wedding, after I left work.  At least I wasn’t injured and he wasn’t either.  I could go on and on.  At one point my fiance’ just pulled me aside, because I was in tears, and assured me that no matter what, when that day came, we were going to be married and that was that.  It helped.

In the endd it all came together,  Our wedding was very nice and so was the reception.  We all had a good time.  Even after the wedding, things continued to go wrong…wrong photos in the photo album, wrong photos printed after I actually ordered…but by this time I was used to it and was able to laugh…a little.  I came to think that all the trials and tribulations of the wedding planning was God’s way of making us fight for it so that we would always appreciate being married to each other, and be fortified for the things life would throw our way.

Lessons Learned

• Planning a wedding is hell.
• Plan on things going wrong, that way if they do you won’t be surprised.
• It does absolutely no good to chew heads off and act an idiot when things don’t go well.  In fact, you have to remember that your fiance’ and the kids are observing for how you handle yourself under pressure.  Don’t cave.
• I personally would never choose to be in a business that had anything to do with weddings.  Too much pressure. But for those who do….for the love of God….get it right!
• Everything turns out OK in the end!

Good Step Mom

There are two ways you can go here, assuming a shared custody situation like we have.  Of course if they live with you full time for some reason a lot of the Step Mom angst won’t apply to you necessarily.  These children are either visitors in your home or they live there…In a shared custody situation, it’s up to you how you want to treat them.  I will say that your relationship with your husband will be closer if you let his kids into your heart.  I decided early on to be involved as much as possible.  This was nothing my husband and I ever really talked about ahead of time, I just sort of tagged along, expressed interest in what the kids had coming up and going on…the school programs, the team dinners, the confirmation classes, the dances, extra curricular events…got to know their friends.  After a while, it just started to happen that the kids began to ask what I thought about things or asked for my help with things.  The only time I asked my husband to what level he wanted me involved was in matters of discipline.  Gladly he said if you’re in, you’re in.

Knowing that the kids were conduits of information between our two homes, there were times when what I told them I meant to be conveyed to their Mother, even if accidently.  Mainly the message to all of them was that I wasn’t trying to be their Mother…rather, what I would try to do was lend support and hopefully be a good influence on them.  There were times, especially with the girls, where I knew I was being pulled into scary territory.  Questions about sex and reproduction, whether or not to let a guy kiss them, taking them out to look at dresses for dances and formals etc. I have always tried to put myself in their Mother’s shoes.  If I was entering an area I knew might hurt her feelings if I “got there first”. I’d just craft a response or orchestrate things in a way that appeased the kids but preserved their mother’s right to have these firsts with her children.

One thing that just sort of naturally rears it’s head is disciplining the children.  If you’re an involved Step Mom, then at some point you need them to be able to take direction from you and do what you say.  Now if you’re lucky, like I was,  they will like you and not mind doing that.  As we moved into the tween years, we had I suppose our normal “well that’s ok because Dad will let me” now and again.  Which leads me to something very crucial to your success as a Step Mom and also I believe to the success of your marriage, and that is….Your husband has got to back you when it comes to what you tell the kids.  This wasn’t something that occurred to me to discuss with my husband before we got married, but it is definitely something I suggest you guys discuss before you get in the big middle of a situation.  Ours was innocent enough, I can’t even remember what my correction had been, but I had given the correction and in front of the kids my (then fiance) said off handedly to me “it’s not that bg a deal, they can do it later”.  That part I will never forget.  I literally felt my face turn red as my blood pressure rose.  I remember asking the kids’ Dad to please give me just a minute privately, and when we got by ourselves I told him that all the things I had been doing all this time to build credibility with these children, he had just wiped out in one single shot.  Without realizing it, by doing that, what he’d done was send the message to the kids that what I said didn’t matter.  I told him then and there, if you want a maid and a sitter…tell me.  Otherwise, if you want me to be involved and help you raise these kids, you have got to get my back and I yours…but you can’t ever do that to me again.  And to his credit he hasn’t.  I have talked to friends of mine who have “blended” families and their husband constantly sides with “his kids”.  Every one of these women is unhappy and unfortunatley falling out of love with their husbands because of it.

So if you decide that you want to keep a comfortable distance between you and your step kids…you might still be able to grab some tips from my experiences.  If you decide to be involved, it will be a difficult road at times..but I assure you it’s worth it and your family will be better off for it.

Lessons Learned

• Realize that how you decide to relate to your husband’s kids will have an impact on your marriage.  I’m not saying the involved way is the only way…I’m just saying be clear with their Dad up front.  That way you’re at least on the same page.
• Don’t try to be their Mother.  They have a Mother. Support them in any way you can and just practice the Golden Rule.  If you had children living part of the time with another woman…How would you feel, what would you fear and what would really bother you?  Then just don’t do those things.
• Discuss your philosophies on discipline of children up front if at all possible.  It isn’t sexy and it isn’t romantic, but it is important for you two to know where you stand so you can work out any differences before something happens.  You have to gain the kids respect and the only way you can do that is if their Dad backs you.  He doesn’t have to always agree, you won’t with him sometimes either, but while he might be able to vent that sort of thing in front of the kids with their birth Mother (after all she has built in credibility) he can’t do that with you.  Your talks on these differences of opinion have got to be private.  Otherwise you lose credibility with them and that will negatively impact how you feel about the kids, being their Step Mom, living in the house and being in the marriage.

Good Step Mom