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.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Friday, April 22, 2011
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.
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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.
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