Like most of the population, my life is not a fairy tale.My husband will fully admit that he’s not Prince Charming and I’d like to think that I’m not the Wicked Stepmother.I certainly have my moments, but it has nothing to do with the fact that I have a stepdaughter; it’s because I have bad days just like everyone else.
Have I ever wished that my stepdaughter’s birth mom could be in her life so we could get every other weekend off while she visits her?Sure.Have I ever wished that she would disappear down a river or at a school science fair?Not a chance.
I’ve been in my stepdaughter’s life for 10 of her 12 years and I’m not about to quit while I’m ahead.I was incredibly lucky to be involved in her life at such a young age – she decided on her own to call me “Mom” after I married her dad when she was 4 (“Mommy” was saved for her birth mom).I’m not sure at that point that I had really earned the title, but she sure put me to task to try.
Stepmoms have a hard job because we have to be a mom to kids without replacing their birth moms (for better or for worse).We have to start and maintain a relationship with our husbands while also forging relationships with his children – which are all on completely different levels depending on the age and personality of the kids.I used to dream for the day my stepdaughter would turn 18 because I’d finally have “alone time” with my husband.Then we decided to have a child of our own and “reset” the clock by 8 years. *facepalm*
As tough as it has been to raise my stepdaughter with my husband as primary parent, I know I’m one of the lucky ones who was able to remove a toxic birth mom from our daughter’s life.Though we did try to maintain contact for many years, we don’t have to deal with her birth mom on a regular basis anymore.We certainly keep tabs on her so when age 18 does roll around we can let them have contact on my stepdaughter’s terms, but that’s about it. I do get a small kick out of the fact that if/when she does make contact with her birthmom, it will be a role reversal of her birthmom not being able to replace her stepmom as an important part of her life.
One of the hardest aspects of being a stepmother is knowing that I missed out on the early moments of her life.Things that happened when she was a baby I only know through hear-say and a handful of photos, and the things I was around for I hardly remember now because of the introduction of the twins into our lives.I think I’ve been able to teach my stepdaughter a lot though, and as long as she safely graduates high school, I’ll know that I really did contribute to the life of another.
What’s funny is that I think of her as my kid, but at the same time get a little defensive when it comes to distinguishing her as a stepdaughter – because I guess certain appearances are more important than I ever thought before – but I don’t really want people to think that I was pregnant at my high school graduation.;)
I’m not afraid of what the teenage years are going to bring because I can deal with her on a more mature level now.I survived taking her to Kindergarten, middle school orientation, and many Saturdays standing in the rain watching her play soccer.It took a while to get here, but the package deal when I married my husband was well worth the journey.I don’t recommend being a stepmom to everyone, but it can work out without putting the stepkids into domestic slavery, feeding them poisoned apples, or any of the real-life horror stories.
Does anyone have any fun step-parent stories to share? Bring it - the good, the bad, the ugly. I've probably heard them all in the last 10 years.
It’s Wednesday and time again for me to post a weekly rambling.I’ve got a fairly good list of topics piling up, but this week I thought I’d laugh at some Sarah Palin quotes that I read while reading about the fabricated controversy about building an Islamic community center a few blocks away from the site of the former World Trade Centers in New York.
I’m starting to wonder if Sarah Palin is just a really convincing Stephen Colbert character?She calls out the ultra-conservative movement issues to show how absurd they are and bring people to realize they are more moderate in their views than they thought.
"We have a President, perhaps for the very first time since the founding of our republic, who doesn't appear to believe that America is the greatest earthly force for good the world has ever known." --Facebook note, June 30, 2010
Well I should certainly hope he thinks so.That’s a bit egotistical of a statement to make.Yes, America is a great place to live.Yes, America has had a huge impact on the world – for better or for worse – since its founding.But no, we absolutely cannot say that we are an “earthly force for good” when there are people who live here that demonstrate consistently that humans are flawed creatures.We have violence and intolerance.We have poor support for new families when they need time off of work.We live in a global climate and for as wonderful as America is, I think we’ve fallen a few steps in the last 10 years – and having that perspective keeps us on track to aspire to be better as Americans and as humans.
"I think it's appalling and a violation of our freedom of the press." —On negative media coverage of Republican congressional candidate Vaughn Ward, Boise, Idaho, May 21, 2010
Wait, what?I don’t even know what negative media coverage that guy got, but excuse me?I do believe that freedom of the press includes all speech, not just what Sarah Palin agrees with.
On the proposed Islamic community center near Ground Zero: "We all know that they have the right to do it, but should they?"OF COURSE THEY SHOULD.We are a country founded on the freedom of religion and the separation of church and state – Obama’s statements in response to her questions have been very appropriate.We can’t dictate what religions are okay and where they can practice.And the community center can’t even been seen from Ground Zero, so they’re only playing this up because they want to rally their herd to follow blindly on another non-issue.
I know I’m a “left coast” person, but c’mon – there has been Islamic prayer sites around the World Trade Center since before there WAS a World Trade Center.There are MANY religious centers in that area – with quite a few closer to the “Ground Zero” site than the planned Park 51. And you know what? If the site of the World Trade Center is such hallowed ground, why are there strip clubs and gambling establishments close to it?
You know what Sarah?I was also brought up in the public school system and went to a public state university, but there’s one thing that apparently got missed along your educational journey – tolerance and diversity.
By the way, after all my musing over this subject for the past week or so that it’s been “news,” Keith Olbermann comes out and makes a great statement on the absurdity of it all.I won’t re-state any of his comments, but it does call out how this is a silly witch hunt using hot button topics.
The Colbert nation should be worried - the Palin herd is coming and they don't know that it's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek.
I'm going to attempt to more consistently write blog entries so check back here on Wednesdays for new topics!
For today's entry I'm going to tackle sugar addiction. Why? Because I had ice cream for dinner two nights in a row last Sunday and Monday and decided that maybe my stress is having a bigger effect on me than I thought. I worked hard to lose weight after having twins, but didn't even get around to doing that much until they were 2 years old. Now they're almost 4 and I've gained a lot of it back again due to one thing or another in my life. (Why yes, having the guillotine over my head for over a year at work before finally getting laid off in April DID cause undue stress in my life. Why do you ask?) So now I'm working too hard at my new job and am still not fully recovered from the stress of the last one. Not a good combination for someone who has a serious sugar addiction and is married to someone who's even more of one than I am. I call him my "enabler" for a reason!
I learned a long time ago that I can't do the complete abstention of sugar for long before I eat enough to average out the drought period. What worked for me back in 2004 (pre-twins!!) when I lost 25% of my body weight was to log my food intake for at least a month and schedule certain days for some amount of physical exercise. The food logging helped with making sure that I wasn't sneaking too many extra snacks that I didn't really need. At that time I really didn't have any idea of how many calories a day I was consuming or how many I should be consuming. Of course now, post-pregnancy it's a different ballgame in terms of how my body reacts to all sorts of things - food, running, sleeping, you name it. With my work schedule and commute there's no realistic way to exercise everyday anymore, but as long as I know that on some days I need to take the extra effort to get out the door, I should be fine. I also know that I do better with picking certain days of the week to exercise rather than a generic "4 to 5 days a week" - because when I do that inevitably I run out of days of the week before do all my runs.
As of yesterday I'm back to food logging again. (Not food blogging, that would take me in the opposite direction of what I want in terms of food intake). I won't blog about the daily in's and out's, but if it works, I'll certainly give updates! I got out and jogged 2 1/2 miles last night pushing both twins in their pj's in our folding stroller. Next time I'll take the time to get the jogging stroller out, but last night I didn't get home from work until after 7p and I had to put them to bed soon. My only goal when I got out the door was to walk for 20-30 minutes, so I didn't think it would be an issue - ha! I jogged, silly me. If I'm out of the house and exercising I generally am in a better mood and eat less sugar. It's one of those things that I always know is true as I'm digging around in the kitchen for hidden chocolate, but I'm out of practice in actually doing it.
Sugar addiction is obnoxious and I know that I'm no where near the level that many others are at. But everyone has their breaking point and I'm hoping that I hit mine. I don't want my doctor to ask me if I need a thyroid test to see if there's any reason other than my love of food causing me to gain weight (my lovely breaking point in 2004). Banning it from the house is only part of the solution for me since my husband inevitably goes out and buys chocolate chips during the day so he can make cookies and feed HIS sugar addiction. I think as long as I don't tell myself that I can't have ANY sugar I'm okay. As long as I give myself permission to have a little bit here and there as a treat I can do it. And that's the critical definition I like to use: if you have it everyday it's not a treat, it's a habit. I don't know who said that originally, but I've been using it for a while.
Here's where you, the reader, come in - what are your favorite methods for getting away from sugar addictions? How do you "detox" if you find yourself starting to eat more sugar than you'd like?
There was an interesting piece in Slate today regarding the reasons that women remain childless that have nothing to do with having abortions. It has a lot to do with the choice that comes with having access to legal abortions, though.
Having been in the camp that I was not going to get pregnant and had no desire to procreate for much of my adult life, I can totally understand where this article comes from. Growing up I always assumed that I would get married and have kids some day, but I never planned my dream wedding and I never named my future kids. I didn't necessarily want those things, I just assumed I'd have them. My junior year of high school I had a guy friend state that he wasn't going to have any kids and it got me thinking: Why should he defend his position without me having to defend mine? I didn't really want to be pregnant, I didn't really want to be in charge of another human being. Looking back, I think that's a REALLY good way for teenagers to think.
Abortions have nothing and everything to do with this mentality. The great majority of women don't go out and get pregnant solely so they can turn around and have an abortion. Thankfully that's not how it works. But it was always assumed growing up that as a woman, I had choices. Having choices is empowering and though I don't know life any other way, I'm still grateful for all of the things that I was exposed to growing up - choice in childbearing, a mixture of races, acceptance of sexual orientation, even equality in sports that wasn't there for the previous generation.
When I did get married (we eloped so I never did have to plan a wedding), my husband understood that I didn't want to have any children. He was highly supportive of me - it just turns out he was really hoping I'd change my mind. Darn him. I can still give much more rational reasons why NOT to have children than why. Children aren't rational beings, so this makes sense. What doesn't make sense is my hormones dictating another woman's procreation. Just because I decided a few years into my marriage that maybe having kids wasn't such a bad thing after all and maybe we could try for one, doesn't mean everyone needs to do the same thing. Sometimes people just don't want to have children and it doesn't matter what the reasons are. Now that I've been pregnant once, I have no desire to do it again. Maybe if I'd had only one child as a result of that pregnancy and not twins I'd feel differently, but I really don't feel the ovaries yearning for another and my brain is fairly convinced that we don't need to add to our family again for any number of fiscal and societal reasons. It amazes me when people see the twins and ask if we're going to have another - can you think of no better question to ask new moms? Seriously? Ask me about the weather, but random people on the street don't need to know about my plans for my uterus.
Maybe I've always been raised to be accepting of childless couples because my parents' best friends were. It's like how my children can see for themselves how gay marriage works by seeing their aunts love each other just the same as their aunt-uncle pairings; I was raised to not really know any different. It worked for those friends to not have kids of their own. I don't know the process they went through to get there, but they've never seemed discontented with their decision, so why should I?
I'm at a point in my life where I'll defend the childless more aggressively than the mega-families, but for each end of the spectrum and for all of us in the middle, just having that choice is what makes me proud of how our country has maintained the rights of individuals. Good old free will.
There's an article on Yahoo! this morning regarding how workers in China are starting to make enough money that with the extra shipping costs/time for having overseas production, there's new incentive for U.S. companies to bring jobs home. Does anyone else see how perfect the timing is with this one? How there are so many jobs lost in this recession that will never come back, that it's a great time to re-introduce some of the jobs we've lost in the States in the last couple decades to the Asian markets that could produce items so much cheaper.
I for one would be happy to see more opportunities to buy "Made in the USA" products again. I really hope the Chinese (and others) can get their wages higher, not only because of the chance to bring jobs back to the U.S., but because then the production lines that are left in China won't be as emotionally tough to buy since the conditions will be better.
I've been working too many hours lately, so I'm sure this isn't the most eloquent way to put this topic, but I felt it was important to give more attention to in this week of such slow news that LeBron James got a one-hour press conference to announce his decision in the free agency.
I just read an article about how the federal government is debating about banning peanuts on commercial airlines. I can understand that it would help people with peanut allergies, but it's fairly standard for me to have PB&J's when I travel. I have small children who eat a lot of "P-Jellies."
I'm totally fine with requesting the airlines to not distribute peanuts, but from the wording, it almost sounds like they'd ban them entirely and have a "peanut-free zone" like they do in classrooms now. Please don't take away peanuts from the passengers, it's not something like cigarette smoke that can drift. I bring it, I eat it, I clean up after myself. I'm not going to smear peanut oil all over the tray and seats, but I think it's a slippery slope for all the other nut allergies - I know more people allergic to almonds than to peanuts.
My husband is allergic to animals, and yet he can travel just fine even with small pets in the main cabin. It's like any allergy - you just have to come prepared. He's also allergic to apples and pitted fruits, so it would be great if no one brought fresh apples on the plane to eat either. I understand it's tough for parents of kids with the peanut allergy - my oldest had an apple juice concentrate allergy for many years; do you realize how many drinks have apple juice as filler? - but let's not make it any tougher for the rest of the parents than it has to be. There's already
After all the fuss of being unemployed for a few weeks, I've now been at my new job for over a week. It's a bit further from home than I would like, but it's work that I'd like to do, so I took it.
As a follow-up to my Anchorage post, I went and had my interview and wandered around town. The weather was great (better than home!) and it's a great city... however, the job wasn't quite what I was looking for in something that would have caused me to displace my family so far (and the pay wasn't as good). I'm sure my mom was the most relieved of anyone to hear that I had declined the job.
Of course now I'm gone from home almost 12 hours a day, 5 days per week, but it's only temporary until the work load dies down and I learn the in's and out's of the new place.
I have an opportunity to fly to Anchorage to interview for a job up there and I'm going tomorrow evening to interview on Thursday. I've been to Alaska, but it's been 17 years and it was only as far north as Glacier Bay - hardly a scratch. Everyone I've talked to thinks we'll love Anchorage since we enjoy hiking and outdoor activities. My brother-in-law even mentioned making sure that we budget for at least one week per winter to fly down to sunshine.
I'm excited at the prospect of moving to Anchorage, now I just have to make sure I do it for the right reasons. This is one of those times when I feel like I'll be interviewing them more than they'll be interviewing me.
My biggest hesitation is the fact that I'm already 1,000 miles from my mom and adding 1,400 flight miles (almost twice that to drive) isn't going to help when it comes to assisting my mom if she needs me. But first! I have to get to the interview and see if it is a beneficial setup for both myself and my prospective employer. Should be interesting!
I'm not sure who had more fun last night - the crowd or the performers!
Either way, w00tstock 2.0 in Seattle last night was oh, so very awesome! I had taken Marty to a Mythbusters night last year which he enjoyed, so I coaxed him into going with the promise that Adam Savage (@donttrythis) would at least be someone he would enjoy. Turns out, he enjoyed a lot more than that. AND Adam showed Marty's favorite video clip of all time - a drunken Adam running on (and falling off) a treadmill in super slow motion.
Wil Wheaton's (@wilw) reading was awesome - I always enjoy hearing authors read their own stuff, you get so much more of the depth of the writing. All of his other various appearances throughout the night were very fun as well. Trolololo, anyone?
Stephen Toulouse (@stepto) - HILARIOUS! The only thing missing was them hitting themselves in the head with tablets as they left the stage a la Holy Grail. That's all I'm going to say - the rest you'll have to watch on YouTube.
Adam was great and the behind the scenes Mythbusters stuff was priceless! - video
Paul and Storm (@paulandstorm) did a great set to end the night. After having performed "Opening Band" to start the show, they did "Mother's Day Song", "Frogger! The Frogger the Musical", "Nugget Man", "Nun Fight", and (of course!) "The Captain's Wife's Lament" with Wil and Adam joining them on stage. Arr!
Their reactionary tweets have been fun to read - I need to go back and compile them before they start getting all excited about doing Portland tonight and I get too jealous.
When switching service providers, it doesn't help when the one you're leaving tells you how stupid you are for going with their competitor.
Open letter to my former cable internet company:
I realize that the other guys aren't as superior as you, but right now I don't care, they are treating me better. And when this "honeymoon" period of wonderful customer service with the other company is over, I won't be going back to you because apparently I'm too stupid to know what product I'm using and how it is delivered to me anyway.
Yes I know you get what you pay for and if it's cheaper it might not be as good, but your tone was quite condescending and I don't appreciate it. (I live with a 12-year-old - tone is a hot button topic for me). Yes, it is cheaper and slower than your product, but your product is over priced and when I lose my job, I refuse to put up with your crap anymore.
I do appreciate you reminding me of the non-financial reason that I am leaving your company: crappy customer service. It's like an abusive relationship - I've been putting up with it for so long that you think you can keep treating me this way and I'll never leave. Yeah, not-so-much.
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