Trading Clothes and Stuff

     It is often a challenge to try to keep things non-stressful with the kids when it comes to their "stuff" and going between households.  In our case, there is an ex who has a firm rule that nothing (and I do mean NOTHING) goes between the two households.  Case in point, one of the kids has a PSP at each house because they can't bring it from one house to another.  They can't even take a single game back and forth between the households to play it on the other game system. (We offered to let her take the games, which we never cared if they came back, and we were told that was NOT an option by the mother.)

     So, when you have a parent who adds this type of challenge to the scenario, usually the clothes are included in the deal.  Specifically, if the kid's clothing gets stained/damaged/dirty in some way while they are with you, you have to deal with the resulting wrath of the challenging parent.  I've been there and it's not pretty.

     Our solution works for us.  It may not work for you, but this is what we do.

 CLOTHING: We usually have to travel between one hour and seven hours after we pick up the two kids, depending on where we're staying during the visitation.  If it's midnight thirty when we pick them, up and they're sleeping, we don't worry about it.  If there will be any eating, activity, or a drive longer than an hour, then we have them change clothes.  We bring our clothes in a clear plastic zip-up bag, like the kind blankets and curtains come in when you buy them, and one or two sandwich sized ziploc baggies.  It's labeled with masking on the outside "Clothing from _____'s House", so we know what it is.  We pack clothes, shoes, socks, underwear, a brush, and a bottle of detangler (one of the girls has hair that needs it) in the bag.  When we pick them up, we find a stop-off location and have the kids change over, putting their other shoes, clothing, etc. into the large clear bag.  Any hairbows, jewelry, toys, etc. goes into the ziploc bags and put into the large clear bag so that they don't get lost.  The large bag looks different enough to make sure we keep it accessible during the drop off change over.

Note:  How long it takes for your child(ren) to change over depends on your family.  I have one who's pretty quick and another that takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R and then dances in front of the mirror talking about how good she looks.

STUFF AND TOYS:  If the kids bring stuff (or sneak stuff) from the other house, I generally have to put it away in a safe place to make sure it doesn't get lost.  We are a relaxed household, and we share all the toys in our family when we're together.  It's sometimes hard to explain to the kids that this toy belongs to another household and the parents there want to make sure it comes back in good shape, so they need to not play with it to ensure it's safety/location.  It's particularly difficult for the child who brought it between the households because they brought it specifically to show the other kids and to play with it.  I usually put the item(s) into a baggie or Wal-Mart bag and store it with the clothes for the return trip.

     I know it probably sounds like the kids are heathens at my house, but they aren't and they rarely break anything.  We have toys that have lasted six years, and they've been played with ALOT.  The reality of the situation is that if you have a parent who is making the situation stressful, sometimes you have to be the better person and adjust accordingly to reduce the stress for yourself and the kid(s).  It's not fair, but hey, we're the grownups (in theory) so we have to parent by example.  Take the time to nicely explain that different households mean different rules and different stuff.  We used it as an opportunity to talk about how people have different value systems, even within the same family.  I mean you're parenting by example regardless, so you may as well do it right.

Pseudonyms and Such

Of course, I'm just as concerned about the safety of my children as everyone else.  To that end, I don't post pics of my kids on this blog and I don't use their real names.  Since it's a very confusing scenario, I've also given them alternate names.  This protects the kids, feelings, and provides a little discretion.

To help with the flow, you should probably know the kids:

Abigail - oldest (being raised as the only child in her other household) and resides full-time out of state with her dad:  we get very limited visitation

Bethany - second oldest (being raised as oldest child in her other household) and resides during the school year with her mom:  we get standard out-of-state visitation

Connor - middle (being raised as oldest child in his full-time household) and resides full-time with my husband and myself:  he's had a step-parent adoption with my husband

Danielle - second youngest (being raised as youngest child in other household) and resides during the school year with her mom:  we get standard out-of-state visitation

Eliza - youngest (being raised as youngest child in her full-time household) and resides full-time with my husband and myself:  only child of our marriage


So now you wanna know.....who lives where?

Connor and Eliza live with my husband and myself full-time.  There aren't any exes involved, so they are truly full-time kids with us for the full 365 days of the year.

Bethany and Danielle are sisters from their dad's previous marriage, so they are full-time with each other.  They live primarily with their mom, who is out-of-state, and we get them for the typical school holidays, long weekends, and summers.

Abigail lives the furthest away with her father.  Visitation with her is sporadic at best, although there is phone contact on regular basis.

The Real Blended Family

FAMILY MOTTO:  The kids come first.

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Hi, I'm BlendedMom, and I have a blended family.

Wow, that probably reeked of a support group intro.  I laugh at the idea, but only in part, because there are actually support groups out there for people who are trying to deal with the dynamics of being a "blended family".  There are whole agencies devoted to nothing but helping people get through this challenge.  I don't know any personally because I did it the hard way, as usual.  Perhaps some background....

My husband and I are each on a second marriage and we both brought children into the marriage.  In addition to the children we were already blessed with, we had had one more together.  Truly, we have a "yours, mine and ours" situation.  Unlike the movie that created the phrase, my husband and I have to deal with ex-spouses/co-parents.  It was so tidy in the Hollywood version, resulting in two parents with tons of kids coming together to create this fantastically balanced family unit.  In our reality, there is visitation (local and long distance), child support, family roles, adoption, power struggles, lawyers, and lots of frustrating questions on what the next step should be.

Over the years, we have navigated some pretty stressful and  rewarding situations successfully as a family.  Our motto is "The kids come first".  Using that as our baseline, my husband and I have tried to make the best decisions we could. 

Of course, in the process of navigating these decisions, we have asked advice and used others as sounding boards on what the best decision might be.  In turn, others have sought out our input as well.  The purpose of this blog is to provide a resource for people who might have questions about becoming/being a blended family, have some input to offer, or are just interested in what blended family life is like.

I'm new to the blogging thing, so bear with me as I am learning as I go.  Hmmmm.....looks like it's the hard way again....you'd think I'd have learned by now.