Priorities

Spring Break Lessons

Monday morning as I was enjoying 'sleeping in' I was interrupted by my oldest son. He knocked on the door and entered with my cell phone in hand and said "Dad says you have to come get him". WHAT? He left at least 20 minutes before this and I was perplexed. I answered the phone to find that he had a dead battery. So I rushed to get dressed, grabbed the keys and drove to his rescue. Murphy's law, when you least CAN afford for even the little things to go wrong is when they happen. We just spent a large amount to fix this car because it gets better gas mileage and Tim's job has him driving all over South Alabama. With the price of gas, and a delayed paycheck for my contribution to the family budget, we decided that even though it is spring break, we would wait until the end of the week (payday) instead of dipping into our savings (which isn't very much yet).

Of course this means that I am the MOM at HOME for spring break with no transportation. As we all know kids can only occupy themselves at home for so long then they are asking "What can we do? We are BORED!!"

Here's what we did . . .

 Built a tent in the backyard . . .

Found interesting things on our way to lunch.

Walked to lunch at Subway our favorite spot!!

Dorothy shopped for a few things for dinner, we climbed on the logs outside the store

frolicked in the meadow . . .

took a break from our walk . . .

looked for shapes in the clouds . . .

ran through the tall grass . . .

found bird nests

traveled  the path less traveled  . . .

enjoyed the outdoors . . .

ran through the dry drain ditches . . . 

We found out that we don't need a car we only need what the good Lord gave us, our feet and the air outside:)

babysitter? or Mom?

I have these moments of clarity, this morning was one.  A year ago at this time I had been married almost three months and as everyone knows became an instant mother of three with those two words "I do" and it has been an eventful year of adjustments.

This morning I woke up with the alarm at 6am, stumbled out sleepy and let the dog out of her crate, shuffled across the living room to turn on the lights each of the kids rooms. Into the kitchen to pour  my orange juice then back into the bedrooms to wake them up.  I am more like a sheep dog in the mornings then a person, nipping at their heels to get out the door on time. "Did you put deodorant on? Get your breakfast, stop staring in the mirror and get your hair brushed, find your shoes."  No I don't know where your uniform shirt is, I put it in your clean clothes basket.  Get your lunch out of the fridge, its time to go, come on your going to miss the bus." I rush them out the door and walk with them down the block (one house) to the corner in time to hug them all before they get on the bus.

Somewhere in the last 14 months I became "mom" and I love it.  I know they have a mom who loves them, I know they love her. I pray for her to find a way to be closer to them because it might make it a little less painful for them. I am the one who is here every day. I wash their clothes, do the grocery shopping, cook for them, clean up after them, award their hard work. I work to help provide for them. I dry their tears, try to explain why "momma" can't live closer. I have to field the emotions that they have when they are given decisions that kids shouldn't have to make (Christmas gifts OR flight out to visit momma) I have to explain why we can't send momma money to help her find a house.

I am mom, I draw from my own mothers patient teachings.  I watch how my sisters kids snuggle up to her and realize that my step-kids now snuggle in the same way when we watch TV.  I relish in the little secrets they come home with about 'girlfriends' and boys they have a crush on. I feel blessed that they see me as mom and call me as such, it also doesn't bother me that they call me Dorothy, I know who is here day-in-and day-out for them.  I feel like mom, I feel like I have been given an awesome responsibility and I am blessed to have great role models of women in my life to draw from when I am caught asking myself "what now?".

As I turn to walk back to the house I notice the soft pink color of the clouds, a welcome brisk cool fall air fills my lungs.  For some unknown reason, I am suddenly clear that I am a mom, not just a babysitter for someone's children. I breath in the cool morning air and realize that a year ago I still felt like I was babysitting someone else's kids, today as I open the door back to into a quiet house I am a mother.

Momma - The sweetest Name

I married not only my husband but his wonderful three children 10 months ago. I consider them my kids, I dislike the step-parent label. Especially since the kids are with us full time.  Their mother lives in LA and when the custody case was before the court in October she faxed a hand-written note to the judge at 4pm the day before the appearance stating she would not be able to appear and could the date get extended.

I don't doubt that she loves her children. I am sure that she wishes they could be with her (as she states many many times in e-mails or Facebook posts). She likes to say that my husband stole them from her when he knew she couldn't appear in court. Yes, among many other reasons he filed for a reversal of custody when after f2 years she could not provide a stable home for them. Aside from the emotional, mental, academic stability that all children need, she could not provide the simplest of basic needs, shelter, a home. All the food, clothing , and other stuff kids needs was provided by either her few friends and family who let them live in their homes, state assistance, or the child support money that their father provided for her. Love is not the only thing that makes a woman a good mother.

As many of those of you reading know from experience, having children changes your life. birthing them you get the nine months to adapt to the thought of them, then you get to grow your knowledge with them as they grow.  I knew they would be part of our life as I married my husband, however, 3 months before our wedding date he informed me that the mother of his children had dropped them with him because her current living situation would not allow them any more.  Then 2 months before our day, she got on a plane from Mobile AL to Los Angeles, CA and we knew that she wasn't coming back anytime soon. He looked into filing for custody (since the kids were living with him full time now). Twenty-four days from our wedding day he was awarded temporary full custody. Two and a half months later the court awarded him full custody.

My conversation with the kids has always been that they are to call me what is most comfortable and respectful for them.  All three started with calling me Dorothy. In 6 months my daughter Meila started calling me Momma when I would pick her up from Brownies.  Then on a sleep-over with her troop she called me momma all night and since then its been almost exclusively momma. It really is sweet especially when it has been her choice.

Meila has asked me on occasion if she should call me momma. I have repeated what I told her from the start " you can call me what you are comfortable with". On one occasion she explained how her other momma said she can't call me mom.  I explained that it probably hurts her momma's feelings to hear her call another woman momma. I told Meila that no one can tell her how she feels in her heart and that if she felt like calling me momma it was up to her, since that conversation it has always been momma.

It is the sweetest name anyone has called me. I'm so thankful.  As for the boys, they call me Dorothy most of the time. They slip once in a while and call me mom and they have this pause afterwards to see if I noticed. They say things like 'your the best mom ever' or when friends ask "is that your mom" they answer "yes".

Recently I posted a video on my facebook page and Meila calls me 'momma' and it bothered her real mom and others.  I knew it was inevitable.  I could have tried to edit the video so as not to hear that precious call of 'momma' but why should I hide the term of endearment that my daughter has choosen to call me. My reply to the shout of "she's not the MOMMA!! was simple "the kids have two mothers that love them very much."  I will never replace their real mom and quite honestly I don't want to, I want to be a better mother then they have had I want to care for their every need, grow them into good citizens, be for them the mother that I am blessed to have. I will wash their laundry, wake up at night with them, hold their hand at scary doctor appointments, nurture and nourish them with all that God has blessed me with so that I may be a blessing to them.  I will love them through hard choices that they don't understand, limit their movie choices, make them read, make them go outside to play, go to church, I pray that in their hearts they will see the woman God calls me to be for them. I pray that their other mother recognizes the blessing they have been given to have two mothers that love them.

Just when you think . . .

Just when you think your kids are handling the new family so well, something snaps you into the reality that they are damaged by their parents divorce. I don't know what it is like to be a child of divorce.  My parents have been together 40+ years, and although no family is perfect, I didn't experience the life my children have.

Tim and I were recently having a normal disagreement about how to stoke the fire, yes a silly subject to disagree on, but I lived on my own in a house with a fireplace for 10 years, I have my own way of doing it. When Tim asked why I was playing in the fire I told him and we disagreed about if it needed stoking or not. A simple few words of disagreement with each others opinions, not yelling, no fighting, just a few disagreeing words.  Suddenly, the middle child holds his hands up, as if to separate us even though we are on different sides of the couch,  and states quite firmly "don't get a divorce".  Shocked we both stopped and suddenly laughed and told him that we are committed to being together for the rest of our lives. We both assured him that when we took the vows at our wedding we meant them and we were stuck together for good and bad! We explained that we trust God brought us together and that we promise him and the other two kids that we are a family and that nothing will tear us apart.

I know this is a big promise.  I hear some of you thinking, 'sure we all thought that on our wedding day', I know some of you have struggled with that promise and some of you have had to break that promise. Some of you are single parents, struggling with how to be the mom & the dad at the same time. I mean no disrespect to you, your situations and your lives are testaments that we never know what the future brings.

Tim & I have all intentions of keeping this promise to each other, our children, our families, and most importantly to God. I only know that the lives of these three precious children have been handed to me, they are the greatest gift my husband has given me.  He trusted me with raising his children, he trusts me more then the woman he made their biological mother. He reminds me frequently of how much they have learned and how stable and loving our home is, how it is the family he had hoped for.  I know that there are times ahead which I can not predict, times that will test that promise but the important thing to remind ourselves at those moments is we made the promise, we meant it, and we have to live it out.

We committed to these kids that we will make a stable loving home for them, we have to assure them at all costs.  Unless one of us loses sight of that promise I am confident that the promise I made can be kept. So I can tell my son, when he blurts out "don't get divorced" that we love each other even when we are arguing and that we will NOT be getting a divorce.  It reminds me that these little lives have been impacted by the actions of their parents, and that even though they were loved through the process, they were damaged.  Nothing but love can heal that wound, nothing but time and always being here for them.

step family VS natural family

"Recognize that the stepfamily will not and can not function as does a natural family. It has its own special state of dynamics and behaviors. Once learned, these behaviors can become predictable and positive. Do not try to overlay the expectations and dynamics of the intact or natural family onto the stepfamily." http://parenthood.library.wisc.edu/Bliss/Bliss.html

I think the above quote is wrong.  I believe that every family, blended or natural creates its own expectations within the group. It is the natural order that the parents set the precedents, objectives, rules, celebrations and such.

Any group has its own individual group personality and dynamics.  I experienced this when I was teaching.  A class of students could be changed by the inclusion or exclusion of key individuals within the group. Just like teaching, there is a basic family make-up, roles of all involved, and there should be consistency in how this group is assembled. I agree that a natural family breakdown and the roles are all re-defined when a divorce of the groups primary leaders takes place.  In many circumstances this is the decision of those leaders that they can not or will not agree to co-lead the family anymore.  Depending on how this decision is made and experienced can make the difference for the children.

The decision to divorce is something that should not be made in haste.  Equally important, when children are involved,  is the decision to start dating and eventually re-marry. When a person makes the decision to be a parent all other decisions suddenly have to be made with the children as a priority. Parents have the most difficult decisions to make when they are faced with moving on from the breakage of the relationship with their co-parent.  I can not imagine how you make those decisions. I can only support those of my friends who have to make them.

I can only make those decisions as a step-mom, my decisions now affect my step-children. My husband and I strive to give these children a family that is strong, perhaps stronger then their "natural family".

Divorce and the role of the family unit

 The State of Our Unions 2005, a report issued by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University, states that  only 63% of American children grow up with both biological parents -- the lowest figure in the Western world. As a new step-mom I have 3 wonderful children that fall into this category. With all the data showing that these children are more likely to have problems in mental, emotional, or social areas. My role as a step-mom, and life partner to my husband,  is to create a healthy family environment for what is now our kids, our family.

The family unit is our most fundamental social structure. It is no surprise that the breakdown of the family is paralleled in society by the breakdown of basic 'common courtesies' that are no longer common. It is our family unit that teaches us the values by which we will live our life.

The family unit at it's core, it is designed to nurture and meet our most basic needs in infancy and young childhood.  The foundational needs in the pyramid of Maslow's Hierarchy are the needs of food, shelter, and safety. In developed societies these needs are met either independently by the parent(s) or with help from the greater society through government programs. However, to raise healthy children it is the 3rd level of the hierarchy and above that are the critical areas of development. These are the areas that move beyond the physical needs of human development and into the development of an individuals sense of belonging, self esteem, and self-actualization.

Child development specialist agree that the most important years of development are the first 5 years of life. Unfortunately this also correlates with the end of many marriages.  As one example, for first marriages ending in divorce among women aged 25 to 29, the median length of marriage before divorce in 1990 was 3.4 years; (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1992, p. 4).  My step-children fall into the masses of children whose parents are divorced before the age of 5. The youngest was 3.5years old when her mother moved the children away from their dad without any explanation or warning. The Boys were 5 and 6 years old when their lives were uprooted. They are amazingly well adjusted considering that they were woke up very early one Saturday morning and moved 245 miles away from their father. Over the next two years they would move 4 times and be in 3 school different school districts. 


The kids are fortunate that there was no ugly custody battle. Their dad was able and willing to move close to where his ex-wife had decided to live when she left him. He only wanted to be near and involved in his children's life.  They actually had an amicable situation (at least from the kids point of view). He allowed her to have full custody as long as she was reasonable about his involvement in the kids activities. Over over the course of time, her living situation did not stabilize, and in fact, became unresolvable for the children to continue living with her.  As life decisions would have it, my husband was awarded full custody without a battle because he could provide the basic needs and a stable environment for them to grow.


I am a lucky step-mother because my children are young enough to not have developed adolescent anger about the situation, and old enough to communicate their emotions about their living situation. Children, overall, are resilient. My three step kids are a mothers dream.  We have had few struggles.  The older boys had significant academic difficulties at the beginning of the current school year. Given a stabile home environment and a step-mother who is a former educator, they are thriving. The middle child shows exceptional growth over the first semester of the year.  His fundamental academic skills have shown remarkable growth.  He repeated 1st grade and is currently in 2nd grade.  At the beginning of the year he was showing signs of being in the bottom of his class average. At the semester grading period he was only 10ths of a point from straight B average. We believe that the stability we have provided has been a major factor in his improvements. We are hoping to achieve similar improvements for the oldest who is struggling through 4th grade. 


When accepting to date & marry a man with children from a previous marriage, I agreed to take all these factors into consideration. I would not change this decision.  I am proud to be a step-mother and I see these children not as a burden but as a blessing.  I am sure there are many challenges ahead, but I am confident that they are normal family struggles. 

single and dating . . .

The divorce rate in the US has been at 50% for the past 10 years or more. The blended family is a social norm. About the time I turned 30 years old I realized that the likelihood of finding a life partner who had not been married was diminishing.  Somewhere between 30 and 33 I accepted that my heart would have to be open to  many situations. Many people in the dating scene will not date someone who already has children.  I believe this is part of the reason for the number of families that are "mine, yours & ours".  Singles don't want the burden of taking on children when they don't have any of their own.  Thus many divorced single parents have to look to other divorced single parents for companionship.

Singles hold out for the fairytale we were made to believe in as kids.  I don't believe there is ONE person for every ONE person.  I believe in our lives we have free will.  It is our personal decision to be open and committed to love. A decision to find someone that matches our level of commitment. If I had decided not to date a man with children I would not have found the wonderful life partner I now have.

Sometime in my early 30's I had decided that I would be open to dating a man who had children.  This is not an easy decision, many complicated situations and decisions have to be handled delicately. The dynamics of dating a mate with children are extremly different then dating another single no strings person. Does the person have shared custody? How often are the children in the custody of your prospective mate? Are there pending custody issues? When is your relationship significant enough to be introduced to the children? Does the person want to introduce you? What will your role as the single unattached partner be in the existing broken family? So many issues that each has to be handled based on the situation.  There is no magic formula for these situations, each one has it own unique blessings and curses.

In my experience the hardest part of dating a parent is that you are in a relationship with more then just one person.  This means you are giving your emotional energy, time, and hopes not only to  the partner you choose but also to his/her children and all the baggage that comes with it.  Thus if/when the relationship falls apart, you are grieving the loss of not only the adult that you started the relationship with but with the children that you built a relationship with as well.  It is a side of the equation that most people don't pay attention too.  They will warn parents about introducing a partner to the children too soon for fear of hurting the children, but what about the partner who has opened up her/his life to the children?  As a former single unattached dating partner, the pain and grieving that is normal when a relationship doesn't work out is multiplied by the number of persons you have given your heart too.

180 Degrees is complete opposite . . .

I saw a glimpse of my old life yesterday. The life before I had kids, when I was a single, working, thirty-something woman. Small house of my own, no one else at home when I arrived from work. My pets were the only ones who needed feeding daily and I could watch ANYTHING I wanted on TV ANYTIME! Peaceful, quiet, my house, my way. Ahh the life of a working gal.

Occasionally I miss the routine and the organization of my former life, but I love the life I have choosen.  Up early in the morning, nip the kids heels to get them ready on time, snacks packed, homework checked, "get your jacket on, the bus will be here soon." Laundry, clean the kitchen, vacuum, bills, shopping, menu for the week, cook, wife, mother. . I manage a household and I love it!

My days were previously filled with intellectual stimulation, juggling e-mails, scheduling visitors from around the world and country, publicity for events, plan board meetings, answer phones, talk students through crisis and course selection for their BA degrees, financial reconciliation of MULTIPLE accounts, tasks I can't begin to explain. I titled myself "Event Planner Extrodinaire".  Graduate students came to me to figure out the complexities of getting paid to do their research, travel to the archaeological dig sites.

My nights could be a quiet dinner at home, walk the dog and watch TV, or happy hour with the gals from the office, and if I wanted I could find a dance spot and boogie my tush off! All a far away world from where I am now.

Now my nights begin at 3:40 when my 3 stepkids run in the door after school. It's "hand me your homework folders" figure out who has the most homework, and prioritize who I need to spend the most time tutoring. I usually let them play a bit which means I have to answer 50 questions from each of them about "do I have to change out of my school clothes? What can we do? Can we watch Avatar (yes I now know cartoon network shows) Can we shoot the BB gun? Will you come jump on the trampoline with us? What is for dinner (they ask this at least every 10 minutes)". After about an hour of this banter, I set them all up at different places in the house to start their homework as I cook dinner.  I have learned to make a menu, if I plan ahead what the main course of dinner will be it is one less decision to make at 5pm when my brain is trying to do 2nd & 4th grade math, figure out strategies to teach them HOW to study, and try to listen to at least one of them read aloud as I am cooking dinner.

TV is a treat in our house.  I have long believed that kids don't need to be entertained as much as they need their brains stimulated to learn.  Before the invention of the TV families had dinner together, kids learned from their parents, discussion among the family happened. Kids read books to learn information. I want that for my kids, I want them to learn how to learn. I want them to talk to us over dinner. So they get maybe an hour a day if they are lucky. We sit down to dinner at my grandmothers table almost everynight, I know she would be proud.

 My poor husband has had to learn that the kids learning is a priority. Most nights he would both like to 'tune out' by tuning in to the current sporting event. I would love to 'tune in' to the evening news, prime time crime show and all the other entertainment. Alas, we try to keep the TV off until after 9pm when the kids go to bed. The kids just can't help but be captivatied by WHATEVER is on the TV.  They become zombie like as soon as it is turned on, so we just leave it off. A far cry from my previous life when I turned the News on as soon as I came home.

I glimpsed at my former life through the eyes of one of my husbands customers.  She had her house broken into just weeks after he had sold her all new windows, so in effort to save her some money he offered to order replacement windows and install them when they arrived.  She had a little old house in an older part of Mobile, tiny kitchen, two little dogs, and a nice porch which she obviously liked to use.  Much like my own house in San Diego.  She mentioned how much she liked living alone, and how at the end of her busy talkative day she liked to come home to just the dogs. I  was a nice memory looking back to that time in my life.

I wouldn't trade my new life for anything.  I love being a wife and a mother.  I knew in my heart that although I may never give birth, I would someday have children. That day has come and I embrace every moment even when I am tired of hearing my name called 60 times in 2 minutes. I love helping them experience new things in life, I love helping them learn, and I love when they beg me to stay in their classroom or beg me to fall asleep with them when I say goodnight.

Raising other peoples Children - the Young ones

Some people desire motherhood from the time they first play with dolls. I was not one of those women. One time in an honest conversation with my mother I admitted that I didn't have that desire. My mothers response was that she was not surprised.  I was a 'Tom boy' a girl who like tumbling through the canyon, at one point I thought I was going to be a Cub Scout. I have had moments when I wonder what it would be like to give birth to my own child, but never an overwhelming desire. I also strongly believe that children deserve two parents, and I hadn't met that man yet.

Although, I have ever experienced the maternal drive to carry my own child, I have been taking care of other people's children all my adult life.  My first job when I was a junior in high school was 3 hours every Friday at a nearby pre-school. I was an aide, my mother a teacher. That first job lasted me nearly10 years on-off through college. Summers as an aide or a teacher, occasionally filling in when they needed someone.  A lot of children passed through my life, kids who miss their moms, fell off the monkey bars, some who had hard starts in life. Some with wonderful parents, some with grandparents who stepped in to care for them, some kids were there from 7am - 6pm.  I raised some of them more then their parents. I wiped their noses, cleaned up their vomit, kissed their 'boo boo's' taught them how to ride a bike, throw a ball, play nice. Teachers raise other peoples children, we supplement what they learn at home or give them the stability they are missing at home.

These were some of my first experiences in raising other peoples children. What I learned there is that children, and in fact all people, need stability.  My mother taught 3 years olds for 20 years and worked at the pre-school for 27 years, in that time parents would request their 2nd child be placed in her classroom because of the influence she had on their children. I was fortunate to grow up with this wonderful woman as my own mother. One of the things she made top priority in her classroom and I believe at home, was stabilizability and  consistent rules and consequences.  These are lessons I apply to my new life as a step-mom.

1,2,3, JUMP

48 Hours after leaving our wedding reception (closing the festivities out at 11pm) we arrived in Big Bear and the kids were ours again. Sure we saw them Sunday at church, and dinner at my sisters house, but we did leave them in the care of their Mimi and Aunt Jennifer for the 1st part of our new life together. Just weeks before the wedding Tim had been awarded temporary full custody.  Their mother had been forced by life decisions to move to Los Angeles, CA and it had been agreed that the kids would return to AL for school. This meant that I would now be a full time stepmother.

I had known since a month after our engagement that this could happen so it was not a surprise. I trusted that what was right for the children would be the outcome and prepared myself to be a full time mom and newlywed. This also meant that our Honeymoon would become a 'familymoon' and that the kids first day of school would be the Monday after we returned. Nothing like jumping right into it all. Life has never happened slowly for me, its all or nothing. This would be no exception.

So on Tuesday morning after our wedding we packed the truck, waved goodbye to my folks from the driveway of the family cabin in Big Bear and all six of us (Tim, me, 3 kids and a dog) began our drive home to Mobile, AL. This would be the first of many trips we hope to have as a family. Five days in close quarters will teach you a lot quickly. I thank my own parents for the road trips in my childhood, and especially my mother for helping me prepare the 'road kit' of things for the kids to do. I felt a sadness leaving my home and family but anticipation of gaining my own family that my husband now trusted me with the position of mother.

I was not going to be the kind of woman who sat quietly by and made my husband do all the discipline. Tim and I had agreed that we were co-parenting.  I knew from my experiences with children and young people that you have to set the boundaries firm from the beginning. I wanted to be the step-mom that changed their lives. Taught them new things, taught them how to enjoy life, taught them what stability looks like.  We had agreed that I would follow Tim's lead and when I felt that it was unfair, or saw something that I thought should change we would talk about it first between us and then as a family. This is still challenging as I am not used to keeping my opinion to myself until its "the right time" to be heard.

Mom by Marriage

I have never been pregnant.  In a simple ceremony I gained a husband, a new life in a new part of the country, and three children. Two boys, 10 and 8 years, and a daughter 6 years young. There was a 22 months of phone calls, cross country visits, a few months of living together, a lot more months of living apart, a week of the kids with us in San Diego during summer vacation, 3 weeks of being in their town with shared visits when they lived with their mother. Conversations with other step moms, one very important conversation with a step mom who adopted her step kids when the marriage dissolved.

It wasn't just motherhood "in an instant" I had prayed about it, thought about it, researched it and knew in my heart it was the right thing.  A simple "I do" confirmed my desire and promise to be a wife and a mother. My 'Mom gig' started 48 hours after that "I do".