Blender

When my husband and I first married I started getting questions like, “what’s it like having a blended family?” at the time I didn’t have a clue how to answer that. At that point in our marriage and family rearing I was simply in survival mode. Now, with some more years under my belt when I am asked that same question I respond with brutal honestly. Here is the honest truth; it is like living life in a blender. I do great with visuals so this is the picture that is in my head when I try to describe what it is like raising a blended family. I have this gorgeous hot pink blender and being thrown into it are six different wills, personalities, wants, needs, desires, passions, you name it it’s all being thrown into this one huge hot pink (it’s my vision right, so hot pink it isJ ), blender.  Here is the tricky part; it’s not just the six of us either. When you and your husband are raising your own children you really only need to consider what you two feel is best for your family. When you’re raising a blended family, if you are trying to do it with as much integrity as you can, you must consider the wants of the children’s other parents as well. Here is the tricky part for me, I DO NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT want to ever have to consider another woman’s wishes or desires EVER when making a decision about my family but here is the thing, above my own wants, I want what God wants and He wants me to consider my step children’s mother as well. So there you have it, as you can imagine, it is like living in a blender at times and hoping that we are not tossing all of this into the blender only to get out a huge sloppy mess. I have learned that if I do it God’s way, even when times are tough, I can go to sleep at night knowing I am doing my very best.

 “And he answering said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27

 

Good-Byes Stink

Well I hate good byes, I don't care it if is good bye for the night, weekend or a good bye that will last several months or years. I do not like good byes. Never have, in fact to avoid them I have been known to move with whomever was leaving. My parents moved to New York several years ago so to avoid the pain of having to say good-bye and live hundreds of miles away from them I packed my daughter and myself up and moved to New York with them.

Last March they moved to China, can you see my dilemma? We can't and wouldn't move to China, so a good-bye was inevitable. Needless to say, that good bye sucked! They came to visit in September and it was a great visit. It was short and filled with lots of activities. When they had to go back we were going to miss them but it was an easy good bye because we were so busy. I was starting homeschooling up again, my son was starting preschool with me, my step-son and step-daughter were transitioning to going back to their mom's Monday-Fridays, honestly there was little time to be sad.

Well they came Dec 22 to spend Christmas with us. I was thrilled they were coming. I spent two weeks before they came, cleaning, baking and trying to make their room awesome for them. My husband, bless his heart what a man, and two of our kids went late at night to pick them up at the airport! For me, when I have my entire family together, it puts me in a state of total contentment. So I was well on my way to feeling all those emotions. The only thing that would have made that night better was if my step children and brother and his family could have come.

Amazing, that is how the time was with my parents. The time was spent well, with times in the kitchen cooking, going to movies, spending time playing games and cards, Christmas eve and Christmas day festivities, late night talks with my mom, wrestling with the kids, going to church, having friends over, shopping and many talks about God and His will for us. It was just awesome, so awesome in fact that I had forgot they will be leaving again.

The final days leading up to them leaving were very hard for me. When they went to bed one night I looked at Matt, my husband, and said "what the heck is wrong with me? I am 33 years old and crying that my parents are going back to China!?!" He lovingly replied "nothing, they are awesome!". I married the right man, that is an entire other blog though. So there I sat, crying in silence while Matt starred at me unsure of what to say or do. While falling asleep that night I thanked God for the relationship I have with my parents. I asked that He would let me put things in a proper perspective and woke up the next day feeling at peace with the fact that my parents did in fact move to China.
I took them to the airport Jan 7th with my daughter and son and we said good bye. We thanked them for the amazing time and they drove away. It sucked! By the way, we are not allowed to say suck in this house but I am taking an adult allowance here to type that "bad" word because it did, it sucked. Its not like they moved to a different state and I can drive there when I need a "parent fix"  they moved to CHINA! The plans God has for them should never cease to amaze me but I am always amazed at where God leads them! While driving away my son was silent and feel asleep minutes later and my daughter sat in the back of the van looking out the window with tears in her eyes. It was my time to be strong and talk about all the great things about having grandparents she loves so much that it is so  hard to say good bye to them. We prayed for them and talked about funny times we had while they were here. The rest of the after noon was spent pretty miserable. No matter what I said or did my daughter was just not going to have a good afternoon. She was in full on, this stinks I don't want them to go back.

That night Matt came home with my step-son, he goes to church with us on Wednesdays, we spent 30 minutes figuring out what we were going to do for dinner. I didn't cook anything. No joke, at one point we had all put our coats on and taken them off because we could not decide what to do or where to go. I was puffy and emotional, Taylor, our daughter, was still crying, Gavin, our son, was all about being crazy due to all the emotions and poor Trent, my step son, walked into a depressing mess! Taylor wanted her comfort food, fried chicken so we went to KFC, big mistake, ten minutes after being there the water works started again because she had memories of being there with Poppy and Mimi. It was time for a reality check. Matt and I had to explain how it is a good thing that we love people so much to miss them. That God has plans for them and plans for us and for the time being the plans are not to be together. We talked about the fact that this is apart of life, good- byes are a part of life and they are opportunities to learn how to go through good-byes gracefully.

Its been three days, we are on the mend. We are all getting back to our "normal". So yes, good byes do stink! Again, I hate them but I am so glad we have such a great relationship with my parents that saying good-bye to them is so hard.
        
This verse is pretty fitting, "for everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.." Ecclesiastes 3:1-5