The following post is about a month old. Well, what can I say? It took some time and guts to navigate toward this whole blogosphere thang. Well enjoy (?), the original title for this was going to be: Another Motherless Child. The tag: A Bio Dad and Custodial Stepmom trying their darnedest to balance children on the fulcrum of a senseless custody seesaw - or - The dramas of a family in “the blender”. You can see why I had to self edit just prior to pushing "publish".
New content to come - I promise. My ego and bored unemployment are very strong motivators. If you are a stepparent in any form, but especially a custodial stepmom, this will be the place for tea and sympathy, to commiserate, rant, laugh, unload your secret feelings about your charges - after all, we are raising the world! Thanks, Nicky
Late February 2008 /
I’m trying really hard to be relieved that that bitch-on-crack, Sonny’s "bio-hazard" (my husband's exwife the bio-mother), turned down visitation this weekend. It would be make-up time from last weekend when my mom was in town to celebrate a late, late xmas, my 30-ish birthday, and an early b-day for Sonny (name changed for obvious reasons). We intended for him and his sister to hang out with us and "Grandma Cali" (again, a nickname to protect the innocent) in our fabulous winter wonderland cottage. Well, BM (Bio or Birth Mother - although it could stand for something else more accurate - if you get my gist…) is estranged from her own mother so the kids are down one grandma. My mom, soft-hearted and immensely generous, who readily adopts strays as her own, makes for a legitimate gramma upgrade for the kids. Anyway, I think it’s courageous for anyone to be truly “down with OPC” (other peoples children). Even though I haven’t given her a “real” grandchild yet, she has always treated MM’s kids (Mountain Man, my man) as “real” grandchildren. A real grandmother. A real mother. Real. Hmmph. It’s a loaded term I’ll save for commentary on later.
Oh, I realize I’m trying to get too much info into this one first post, (and may speak parenthetically way too much) but this is my first foray into blogging, so please bear with. I’m figuring out style and techniques as I go.
Anyway, it’s great Sonny won’t be delivered into the pit of hell that is his mother’s home (a friend of ours calls visitation between divorced parents “transferring the hostages”). On the other hand, I so look forward to the weekends MM and I have alone together. I cherish them. I crave them on afternoons I’m on after school duty. We pretend to be childless on really good ones. Those hedonistic, long, lost-in-each-other weekends. I’m sure you can imagine the nature of life with a man who has full custody of his children from a previous relationship gives even a realistic woman a sense of romance deficiency, from the “I do’s”. Honeymoon Interrupted. But I knew this job was dangerous when I took it. I just don’t understand why we have to choose between healthy adult one-one-one time and our children’s well-being! I mean, this is my second marriage after all, and my ex had a son. So I had pretty good idea of the type of baggage I would be inheriting, right? (Yeah, and I totally ignored some warning signs because I truly believe I found my soulmate – but that’s another story). However, in our defense, we did take things slowly and dated for a couple years and tested the home environment together, before tying the noose, I mean, knot. But, in my loveblindedness I didn’t factor in the mental health, personality, and morality of the BM, that specter of a woman, which will inevitably undermine the structure and quality of the newly forming, beautifully fragile blended family. Picture the four of us grappling toward family attachment, all the while a jealous, untreated bipolar is taking pot-shots at us and using her children as dirty bombs.
Well, at least we did have some fun this morning going to breakfast at the dual-purpose greasy spoon/local news and weather center CNN (Country News Network) and this afternoon we tested out MM’s new Nikon D40X SLR. We’re practically snowed in, he couldn’t get to work, both snow shovels are broken, all the snowblowers in town are sold, and well, screw it! We need to exploit anytime we get to just fuck off together. Below is one of the shots we took on the way home from TrueValue.
Till next time,
AM (Acting Mother, or, SWEN – She Who Earns the Name)
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