Take the Girl Time

I think that in most if not every stepmom's mind we believe we should spend every possible moment with our stepkids while they are under our roof.

I can't.

I love my husband and stepson dearly, I really do. They fill in places in my life that I didn't know were missing until I met them. But hanging around with those two all the time? I feel like I'm attached to a boy's club sometimes and I don't have the right equipment to be a part of it.

That's good though, because it is the father-son relationship that I'm experiencing and I don't necessarily need to be a part of that all the time. I know that right now the little perfectionist stepmom in me is crying out, "But, but," and maybe your inner stepmom is too. But honestly, he had those kids before you ladies, he can handle them.

The balance has taken me a few years, but I've learned that I don't need to get involved with everything as deeply as I did before. I don't need to hold everyone's hand, and honestly, it isn't my custody battle. It isn't!

I will remain supportive of both my husband and stepson throughout custody issues and whatever else comes their way. Supportive doesn't mean I have to be involved in every decision, it means that I can sit back and enjoy. If the boy is under our roof, awesome, I will take care of him as if he is my own. If he's not under our roof, I guess it means the husband and I can have more quality time together.

No matter what ladies, never lose those girl friends, there will be a time when you just need some girl time to take a break from being wife and mother.

Step Kids Need to Know they Belong

When our son arrived at our house after spending some time at his mother's, it seemed as though he felt he needed to carve out his own niche. His carving out his own niche not only included negotiating for everything that concerned him-but also necessitated a strong need in him to reorganize our entire house.

Maybe his mother's house is organized a different way, but it seemed to be a little deeper with our son than that. He even wanted to rearrange the flour and sugar canisters and where the bread was stored. It seemed as though rather than relearning our system (which has been around in this specific house for nine years of which he's been a part of) he wanted to create something new that started with him.

Since there was no real reason for our house to be organized according to what the little man thought would work, (regardless of canister size, we put the big one first because it is used most often) or where the bread should be stored (it would be hotter on top of the fridge and therefore get moldy faster) we simply reminded him of where everything went and gave him the option of reorganizing his bedroom.

The reorganization of his bedroom has been key in his maintenance of it. Before it was congested with toys (the last major cleaning being three years ago when he was 10) and now only a few remain. (A lot changes with a 13 year old-hence the start of a blog.) Now that the "too colorful maps and poster of flags of the world" are down and the furniture has been rearranged, there certainly is less clutter. And now the young man who often flings whatever comes into his grasp wherever he's done with it, actually has started to put some of his stuff back without being prompted. Now if I could only get him to do that with the rest of the house or with his dirty clothes, he wouldn't have to face grumpy stepmom.

Addictions and Children

I have learned that addictions are genetic and that it is entirely possible for our stepson to have the same addictive personality as his blood relatives. I would have thought that after seeing as much pain and suffering that one particular family member went through that this would divert any interest in either alcohol or marijuana. While I'm fairly certain that he has not tried any of these things yet, his curiosity about them has me scared about a future that I cannot possibly control.

Over this past vacation we stayed at a family lodge where the pool room was connected to the bar and also a little arcade area. While his father and I didn't drink, we did agree to teach him how to play pool. The entire time we were there he just soaked it up like a sponge, commenting on how cool it was to be in a bar, and how he would try drinking simply because he liked the "bar atmosphere" and playing pool. Now he's decided that any restaurant where he can play pool is his favorite restaurant.

While I knew that he would probably try drinking when he was older and he would have to see for himself how he handled it, his apparent absorption into the bar scene frightened me. While I know that it is difficult for a human to learn from another's mistakes, I had hoped that he wouldn't make the same choices as his relatives.

His other comment that scared me was when he indicated that he liked the look of glass pipes and that he intended on starting a collection of them. While he didn't come out and say that he would smoke them I still don't like the idea of his even having them someday, knowing that he could get easily addicted. His dad and I tried to explain that there are plenty of items that are made from blown glass, that there are several other things that he could collect if he wanted.

While there is nothing I can do at the moment except worry about possible future warning signs of drugs and drinking, I can assist in breaking his addiction from technology. Our son has an affinity for computers, video games, iPods, etc. We limit the hours that he spends on these items simply because it becomes all he can think about or talk about when he has long exposure to them. (And he would spend 12 hours a day on them if he could.) Our latest technology debacle happened the night before basketball camp.

We put him to bed early because of the early morning the next day; but my husband had a feeling and checked on his son a half an hour later and found him playing his PSP under the covers. After having his PSP and the rest of his technologies taken away for the next week and a half we were able to observe his dependency which our son claims he doesn't have. Every time the husband and I came near the laptop to do any type of work it seemed as though our son was drawn there like a moth to a flame, just needing to soak in that artificial screen light. And we could be working on anything, things that don't normally interest him, but he would sit and stay until we asked him to leave.

While the banishment of technologies for our son would normally not allow him to be near the laptop while we worked, both the husband and I wanted to see how addictive his little personality really is. I'm not a fan of the answers I've observed; and I sincerely hope the future doesn't hold as much pain and addiction for the little guy as his relatives have experienced.

Follow Their Musical Dreams

I played four instruments when I was younger. My husband was forced to play the violin when he wanted to play sax, and didn't stick with the violin for very long. So when our son persisted on wanting to look at electric basses because he played one at a friend's house and really liked it-we didn't say no.

We arrived at Music Villa knowing little to nothing about basses. I had picked one up for approximately a year several years ago but never played it outside my bedroom, no money = no lessons, no place to play it.

The shop guys showed us a few nice entry level basses that our son could start with and introduced us to Eddie T., a bass player for seven different bands in the area. Eddie was able to pick out the best of the entry level basses and offered to give us a free first lesson if we purchased the bass that day. We already had an agreement with our son that we would split the cost between him and ourselves if bass was what he really wanted to play. The hope being that if he also sunk $150 into the guitar and amp costs that the equipment wouldn't sit in the corner and collect dust.

It worked. The next morning before he even came out of his room we heard the strumming of his bass. We called up Eddie T. and have been having once a week lessons ever since. He's learning how to play different songs, fingering exercises, and will soon start on scales and actually reading music instead of tabs. Pretty soon we'll enroll him in Music Villa's Performance Academy for eight weeks of Rock Camp.

What this stepmom knows right now, it's incredible to have an instrument in the house that the child plays willingly, mostly on his own, though sometimes having to be prompted to "practice."

Persistence and Basketball Camp

My stepson just returned from a three day basketball camp. Granted, it was from 9 to 5, but he was able to come home with the husband and me in the evenings and be sent off the next morning with a snack and lunch from home. So he didn't even have to have "camp food".

Anyway, we enrolled him in basketball camp after he took such a liking to the sport-but didn't make the team last year. The camp focused on better ball handling and shooting skills. After Day One he came to the Jeep, stiff-legged and complaining. There weren't any cool kids, they worked him too hard, could he please not go to the next two days of camp.

We told him that Day Two would be better and his muscles would be more used to it-in fact they would stiffen up too much if he didn't try it again. So we ushered him out the door for Day Two with a lot of grumbling... but he was smiling when we picked him up from camp that day. He admitted to learning new skills, getting better at the stuff he had known, and his muscles didn't hurt too badly-but he couldn't wait to take off his basketball shoes.

Day Three didn't take any persuasion on our part to usher the little man off to camp-although he did know he was getting picked up at 3 o'clock instead of 5, but he came home, showed off some of the new moves he's learned and will continue to practice; and hopefully will take on basketball tryouts with a new confidence and make the team.

Thanks Advantage Basketball Camps!

It's the Little Things that Count

I am the laundress of our household. I have secured my position by being the finicky one about which of my things gets dried or hung to dry, and the only one around here who seems to care about shirts being folded the proper way, (without the crease down the middle). I do feel that the chores are split up equally, so it doesn't bother me being the laundress-I rather prefer it actually.

While I'm folding our laundry each of us gets our own individual stack of clothes to put away. For my stepson, I separate his stack even further: swim trunks, sports shorts, regular shorts, jeans, t-shirts, long sleeve, tank tops, boxers, and socks into smaller individualized stacks on his bed. In my mind it insures that they will be put away in appropriate drawers and discourages the action of attempting to fit one stack of laundry into one drawer. (We do have experience in this area.)

The other night I overheard my husband talking to his son, he said something to the effect of, "You're lucky, you get your clothes separated for you, I just get a large stack."

I haven't ever thought of doing it for my husband, simply because he can put his clothes away without the additional assistance. Yet since I have overheard this conversation between the two of them, I now separate his clothes into individual stacks on our bed too. It doesn't take that much longer for me to do--and the husband feels both appreciative and appreciated.

It really is the small things in a marriage that can make a difference.

I Don't Want to Make that Fatal Mistake

I consistently worry about committing the parenting atrocities that my parents did. There are several reasons why they and I aren't on speaking terms currently. So when I feel my anger about to boil, I have to step back, or blow off some steam by running the lawn mower up and down the yard. So why am I frustrated?

We took our son on a short trip, and nothing pleased him. Our first stop was a little amusement place with Go Karts, Bumper Boats, Mini Golf, Laser Tag, and arcade games. After spending over $50 to amuse him with one of his old favorites, he focused all on the negative, how a kid had bumped him out of the race on the Go Karts and and how the whole park "was going downhill" because they didn't have as many high-end prizes as they did previously. (He's convinced that a long time ago they had a PS2 for a top-end prize, but since there is no video game console as the top-end prize, the whole place is obviously "going downhill".)

Our next stop was our favorite fishing cabins, they are the most comfortable on the Bighorn River, and the most clean. Well, they weren't good enough because their mattresses weren't Temperpedic. (Where on earth he has slept on a Temperpedic to have such an expert opinion on the matter I have no idea. Certainly not with his mother.)

Our next stop was our favorite fishing lodge by the Tongue River. He wasn't pleased here because the hot tub water was too hot, there was some dirt in it, and his steak at dinner came out rare instead of medium.

On our way back we stopped off at some water slides, but of course he has rode on better elsewhere (even though the last time he was at an alternate water park he was too scared to ride the slides--but it's more fun.)

I try to be positive about most things in life, so when I'm stuck traveling with a little unappreciative storm cloud, I just about lose it, or mow the lawn really quickly when I get home.

Last night after I felt I had cooled off enough, we sat down with him and had a long talk about what it means to appreciate what other people are trying to give you, staying positive, and how having a sense of entitlement is going to get you nowhere. I realize that we are a fortunate family--able to drop everything at home most of the time to go fish someplace. But if you ask him about this trip, he wouldn't tell you about the fishing at all, (which was awesome, by the way, and he caught his first fish on dry flies), but he would tell you about the too hot hot tub, the undercooked steak, and the mattresses that weren't Temperpedic.

Whatever life hands you, you should be appreciative of the good parts, no matter what the negative side of that might be. And if you have a sense of entitlement of what should happen or what should be given to you whenever you want it, especially at 13, you will end up disappointed and putting a damper on everyone else's good time too.

There is a reason why his father started calling him "His Lordship", there is a reason why I'm debating between either "Diva" or "Goldilocks", but maybe if he looks up the words entitlement, selfishness, and appreciation today, his attitude may improve as it usually does after he has to look up terms that describe his behavior.

But most of all, even after I discipline him, I hope he still speaks to me as an adult.

The Transitioning Bedroom

I knew it was coming, we all did, the "I'm too grown up for this bedroom". (We made it out fairly easy actually--he still wants his bunk beds for the built-in desk and cubby, and he liked the framed pictures we already had of trees and fish, thus avoiding the band posters). It was hinted at a few months ago when he complained that the World Map, United States Map, and Flags of the World poster on his wall were "too colorful". He also mentioned this about the little blue plastic cabinet with the red, yellow, and green drawers in his closet that stores miscellany, but it's still storing miscellany because it's in the closet where no one can see it.

Anyway, yesterday was the big clean out day, and it took nearly all day because every toy that was pulled out had to be played with or charged and then played with. It's great that he shows such sentimentality for the toys, but all that playing tires a little man out. The afternoon seemed to drag on without end for him and for us. (It didn't help that we also had to run into town to his bass lesson at 3:30).

While the sentimentality was precious, it also was a little frustrating. As usual he had to be redirected to the task, otherwise he would not have been able to sleep in his bedroom last night. At times he would get frustrated because he is at the nervous nexus of childhood and being a teenager and he wouldn't know if he wanted to keep an item or not. Our simple rule was to keep it if he didn't know, better to have it than to regret it later.

The important lesson from having to transition your bedroom from one stage of life to the next (or moving for us adults); is how overwhelming material items can be when faced with organizing and getting rid of the less important. All the moving I did in my early twenties taught me that I really only need the necessities. A list of necessities is going to be different for everyone, for me it was clothing, kitchen cookware, at least one if not two pieces of furniture for each type of room, and pictures to hang on the wall. (I would figure out the curtain arrangements after I moved in since windows are never the same size).

Our culture facilitates purchasing extra items at the store that we didn't intend when we went to the store in the first place. It's easy for all of us to eventually box up items, store them, and promptly forget about them because "we might use them later." It doesn't hurt to take the hard line and unload what we haven't even looked at for a few years.

What I do know for certain is that a donation center will be pleased with the load that we bring in this afternoon.

Why it's Unreasonable to Say "No" to a Reasonable Query

Let's face it, "No" works about as long as your child allows it. Then come the "reasoning" years, (though, depending on the mood of the child the "reasoning" may be argumentative, talking back, etc). The reasoning years don't take "No" as an acceptable answer to a reasonable query. So what is an unreasonable query?

Lately my stepson has been studying vehicles as we pass and wondering which one might be his in three years. Three years. Anyway, when we pass by a corvette, "Can you get me that fast car?" "No," is an appropriate response, and not one they intend to argue with. "Can I get a motorcycle?" requires a little more than a "No," something to the effect of: "Not while you're on my insurance policy," usually gets the message across. Unreasonable queries can actually handle a humorous, sarcastic response, depending on the sensitivity level of the child.

So what about reasonable queries? Why is "No" not an appropriate response? Reasonable queries are often something the child has received before, a privilege you might say. If you say "No" it's guaranteed that the child will believe this is up for debate. The answer can never be just "No."

An example of a reasonable query came from my stepson a few days ago, "Can I play some video games?" It was in the morning, and there were expectations (see previous post) of him that still needed to be accomplished that morning as they do every morning. So instead of "No" the response to his reasonable query was, "First you need to make your bed, pick up your clothes off the floor and place them in the hamper, wash the breakfast dishes, and practice your bass."

He smiled, took care of the listed items, (teenagers work best with lists, otherwise they forget what they're supposed to do and get in trouble) and in a little over an hour, he was playing video games.

Consistency is a Parent's Best Friend

I realized early on that consistency is an invaluable tool in parenting. When there is consistency, there are expectations for both the child and parent to meet-and the structure is reassuring for all involved.

While my stepson has been under our roof this summer, we have set a bedtime for 11 pm. Granted this didn't always work while we were on vacation-but when we are at home we can schedule a little bit easier and institute the 11 pm bedtime. The first two or three nights we faced some argument, a little talk back about how it's his summer vacation and he can do whatever he wants. But now when we state "bedtime", he simply makes a slight grumbling noise and off he goes. While this has been consistent-and no longer an issue seen for debate in the teenage mind, reading before bed is still a consistency issue.

My stepson used to love to read, but now with adolescence and growing access to technologies that can move much faster (or be changed in a click), books have a difficult time holding his attention. We always used to have a before bed reading time of half an hour. As of late, if he hasn't read yet that day, we ask him to get ready for bed at 10:30 and lights out at 11. Not only is he keeping up with schoolwork that will probably never be checked, (he's supposed to read five recommended books over the summer) but the half hour also provides a great wind-down time for a young man whose mind and therefore body dart in every direction possible with every new thought. (Yes, he is a bit clumsy.)

Here's where the consistency problem is-the arguments and talk backs about starting to read at 10:30 and lights out at 11 persisted past a few nights. Finally, my stepson proposed the solution, if he hadn't read yet during the day, he would read at 10:30, if he had read, he could stay up with us until 11. In this instance compromise instead of consistency created the expectation at our house. And with those expectations, come a happy, peaceful household.

Is Parenting Really Different Than What I'm Doing?

The question has an easy answer, and that is simply no, there are the same responsibilities, disciplinary issues, same attention paid to the child. But it's complicated.

Most stepparents aren't around for all the childhood years, and in this there is a unique challenge in defining respect between the stepparent and stepchild, and what the boundaries should be in that relationship. While I feel I have a great relationship with my stepson, I also at times lean on his father to handle the situations that I am unsure of. I believe that this is probably normal for most stepparents, we are involved in the upbringing, but also detached. There simply seems to be things that the parent should handle, and in my case, 13 year-old boys listen to their fathers better than anyone else on certain subjects.

While this primary post doesn't have too many specifics, I hope it provides more detail of what is to come as this stepmom takes on her stepson's teenage years.