On Being the Step-Mom on Mothers Day
When I became a mother to my two boys, it was in the typical fashion: wanting babies, making babies, growing babies, birthing babies, loving babies. I bonded with my baby boys quickly and easily, as I nursed hem, changed their diapers, and cared for them.
When I became a step-mother to my two girls, it was in the typical fashion: dating their dad, loving their dad, marrying their dad, learning to love them. That’s right, I said learning to love them. One of the more important things I have discovered along my step-mothering journey is to allow myself time to love my girls. I don’t know that I ever experienced a crystallizing moment in my life when I knew I loved them, but I can honestly say that I have grown to love them. Yes, there are definitely days in these teen years, when they challenge my loving feelings, but I think that is pretty normal, even among fully biologically related adolescents and their parents. During these trying times I think to myself that it was a really good thing that I became a step-mother when the girls were little. It has allowed us time together when they when they were sweet and cute, before they became hormonal teens.
Juan and I started dating when the girls were 6 and 3. I can still remember the first time I saw Erica. She was in Juan’s car, perched up on her car seat holding an empty bottle. She had long since given up drinking from a bottle, but she still held onto an empty Playtex nurser as her comfort. When I asked her about it, she told me “I just like to hold it.” My heart melted a little. I’d like to say that at that moment I instantly fell in love with that little girl with a quick smile and fly away curls, but I would be perpetuating a myth that becoming a step-mother makes you love your partner’s children automatically. It doesn’t. In fact, becoming a step-mother probably has less to do with love and more to do with compassion and endurance. Step-mothering is a test of love. A test of the love you have for your partner, and the love you have for your family and the family you hope to become.
Juan and I have been married almost 9 years now. This year I will celebrate my 8th Mother’s Day as a step-mom to my girls. Every year, it’s a little awkward, and every year it get’s a little easier. On one of my earlier Mother’s Days as a step-mom, I woke to the sound of activity. Juan let me sleep in a little but I could hear the unmistakable sound of kids trying to stay quiet as they started their Sunday morning. The custodial agreement between Juan and his ex-wife stated that the girls would be with their mom on Mother’s Day. It was our weekend together but of course, they needed to be with their mom on this special day. They were excited to go and share with her the handmade gifts they created at school. When I got up I could see that Olivia had two beautifully wrapped packages waiting on the window seat in the living room. I commented on the packages and she said that the gifts were for her mom and aunt. Olivia left a few minutes later calling out to me, “Happy Mother’s Day,” taking both presents, and leaving me empty handed, and feeling hollow. Ouch.
It’s gotten better since then. I know Juan remembers the bitter sting I felt that morning when I realized that all my efforts caring for the girls went unrecognized. It was a painful lesson, that as much as I cooked their meals, washed their clothes, combed their hair and helped them with their school work, I was just the step-mom. But it was also a lesson in compassion for me, and it continues to remind me that as difficult as step-mothering can be for me, step-daughtering for them is just as difficult. Of course, they love their mother, and even through the teen conflicts we endure right now, I know they love their dad. Loving me, is a little trickier. Isn’t it a fantasy of nearly every child of divorce, no matter what age, that your parents will get back together? How do you love someone who is the obstacle from your parents ever getting remarried? How do you love someone who does the “motherly jobs” without betraying your loyalty to your “real” mother. It’s complicated and I am sure the girls felt conflicted, and still do feel conflicted at times.
That morning was a reminder to me that I needed compassion to fill in gaps as I learned to love my girls. Yes, it hurt, but they needed time to get to know me and what our relationship as step-mother/daughters would be. We needed time to grow to a place where they could love me without feeling they were disloyal to their mom. I needed time to know them, and not feel pressured to love them instantly. Different from bonding with my newborn sons, bonding with my girls is prolonged, and seems to be a more back and forth; a shared process between me and each daughter. This process is evolving still today. It is constant shift in what it means for us to be in relationship with each other, especially since now Olivia lives with us full-time and Erica spends the majority of her days with her mom. Through it all, I am loving their dad, loving my family, and I am loving them.
Happy Mother’s Day to mothers and step-mother’s everywhere.
On our wedding day, the day I officially became their step-mother.
Mothers Day morning update: Juan surprised me with this link to a video he made and posted to You Tube. Watching it made me realize that through all our years together we have really bonded as a family. Plus, it made me really cry!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8NmfBNCYeg&feature=youtube_gdata_player
50/50 Friday – Week 49
I can’t believe in a little over two weeks I will be one year into my project of 50 Things to Do Before My 50th Birthday. One year down, and one to go. I have accomplished quite a bit, but honestly I thought I would be further along by this time. It hasn’t been easy to do much this month, since May is the month with Too Many Occasions. In this month alone, I will have 5 birthdays, 2 graduations, 3 recitals, Mother’s Day, prom, and the usual assortment of baseball games, scout events and church obligations. The impending one year anniversary of my project inspired me to get back on my cooking bandwagon–that and the purchase of the Pioneer Woman’s new cookbook.
The first new recipe I tried was Spicy Lemon Garlic Shrimp. There is one thing everyone in my family agrees on–we all love shrimp! I knew this was going to be a real crowd pleaser, and this recipe did not disappoint. I also loved the fact that it was easy and quick. The recipe said to serve it with bread for dunking into the juices, but I didn’t like the idea of greasy hands and dripping bread all over the table. Besides, there’s one more thing everyone in my family agrees on–we all love pasta! I put the shrimp over angel hair pasta. Yum!
Spicy Lemon Garlic Shriimp
The next recipe up was Peach-Whiskey Chicken. Once upon a time someone brought me a bottle of whiskey. I don’t drink whiskey. I don’t know anyone in my family who drinks whiskey except maybe my dad. The whiskey bottle sat in my pantry until the night I decided to stink up my house and cook with it. Unfortunately, it was also the night when Olivia invited her boyfriend over for dinner. Olivia, who has the nose of a bloodhound, was mortified when she walked into the kitchen. I reassured her that the smell would evaporate and her boyfriend would be able to drive home without risking a DUI. Then, I opened all the windows and tried to fan away the fumes. By the time her boyfriend arrived the odor had faded and the chicken was stewing in the oven. I thought the dish was pretty good, but it was not rave worthy. Fortunately, Olivia’s boyfriend is much too polite to say anything negative. The recipe called for chicken legs and I obliged. The chicken legs cooked until the skin was falling off so it was pretty messy to eat. Diego did not like it at all. He said, “I really don’t like naked chicken.” Well, I guess no more naked, drunken chicken for my family.
Almost naked, drunken chicken on a bed of noodles.
I have also been doing my part to check off two more wines from my list. My sister-in-law brought this one to a family birthday celebration dinner this month and I really enjoyed it. Robust but not spicy or tannic. On the extra positive side, it’s really inexpensive. It’s only $4 at Trader Joes. I picked up a couple of bottles.
Good, drinkable, any occasion wine with a good price point.
I also tried this one. I picked it up at Cost Plus for about $10. I like big buttery chardonnay and this one fits the bill. It’s a little bit of a splurge for me, but I loved the name of the winery and since I had been shopping for everyone else’s birthday presents I thought I would pick me up a little something too.
This one is better than any cupcake I've ever had.
The last thing I did recently was to take on a cause, number 27 on my list. I have been looking around for a cause I could add to my blog. A cause which really interested me. I have seen this organization before, but when I came across this campaign about giving up your birthday for charity water, I knew I found my cause. Clean water is something that most of us have available and something we probably take for granted. I know that when I have to bang on the bathroom door and tell my kids that 20 minutes is WAY too long of a shower, they are taking this resource for granted. I know that when I see several half-filled water bottles around the house and in my car, my kids don’t realize the value of a clean, constant water source. For this birthday and the next big one, I am asking for donations to this cause. I want everyone to have clean water. I want to impart this message to my kids. Besides, if I can pass up gifts for my 50th birthday, while doing some positive modeling for my kids, and contributing to clean water somewhere else, it almost makes turning a half-century bearable.
Two more weeks to go until my 49th birthday….One year and 19 days until the big one.
Ring Ceremony
Not long ago Juan and I took an extended lunch hour from work to attend a ring ceremony at Olivia’s high school. What’s a ring ceremony? Well, I am glad you asked, because I didn’t know either, until I went to one.
Olivia is a junior at an all girls Catholic college prep school. I never went to Catholic school growing up, much less an all girls school, but if I had, I would have loved to attend this school. Her school is in a diverse, urban neighborhood. The school is over 100 years old, founded by a very progressive order of nuns. So progressive in fact, that the nuns actually defied the archdioceses directives and abandoned their habits in the 1970′s. The school’s motto is that the young women who attend are educated to be of “great heart and right conscience.” I see Olivia maturing into a woman of right conscience. Olivia too, is loving her experience at this school, and when she came home last year with the order form for her class ring, she was very excited about the idea of getting a ring for the school she loves. I was less than enthusiastic about spending so much money on a piece of sentiment that wasn’t even “real” jewelry.
The Rings
Olivia’s class ring reminded me of my own, long lost piece of tin. My class ring was pewter, and had a blue stone, for my school color. It was probably the most expensive piece of jewelry I owned at the time, but it was not “real” jewelry. I ordered it from a catalog and when my class ring was delivered, I picked it up from the student store, and proudly slipped it on my finger. I think I wore it for the next two years until I graduated high school and then took it off when I went to college. I haven’t seen it since. My class ring was a sentimental symbol of the times, that quickly became a token of a chapter in my life that ended when I went to college. Knowing this, I tried to dissuade Olivia from spending so much money on a piece of jewelry which was sure to become cast aside once she graduated high school. She could not be dissuaded so we ordered the ring for her waited for its arrival. When the ring arrived, she told us that it would be presented to her in a ring ceremony, and invited us to attend.
The ceremony included music played by a worship band and a choir. Olivia thrilled us and her her classmates, by playing the drums as part of the band. She had been studying drums for a while, but she doesn’t like to play for us. Other than the drum banging going on in our garage, it’s hard to know she actually is making any progress drumming. There was a brief moment of panic when I saw that the dress Olivia was wearing was so short it made it difficult for her to sit behind her drum kit and not be embarrassed. Luckily, she was wearing a sweater and she took it off and draped it across her lap as she played her drums.
A girl and her drums
During the ceremony the rings were blessed, and the girls received special notes from their “ring sisters,” girls from the senior class who acted as mentors to their younger classmates. At the designated time in the ceremony the girls received their rings returned to their seats and then placed the rings on their fingers. This moment, they were told, officially marked them as upperclasswomen, making them leaders in the school and giving them the special responsibility to be examples to their younger classmates. It was a special moment for Olivia, and for me. While she was officially becoming an upperclasswoman, I was that much closer to having step-daughter who would soon be leaving home for college. It was a bittersweet moment. Their are definitely days when she is in full teen mode and I think I am ready for her to leave for college, but there are more days where I realize how quickly the years have flown and how the days we have together are coming to a close.
It was a very special day for Olivia, and as it turns out for me too.
All manicured and ready to go!
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The Pioneer Woman and I
Last night I found myself home while Juan was at a work event. I didn’t have to run the boys back and forth to baseball practice, nobody had scout meetings or church youth group, drama rehearsal and no last minute flash card review for art history exams. In essence, I had the night off! That is how I found myself at my local bookstore, standing on line, waiting to meet one of my favorite bloggers, Ree Drummond, aka The Pioneer Woman.
When I began blogging I really didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t even read very many blogs, but the one that I did read was Ree’s. In case you don’t follow her blog, she is pretty much the original blogger. She has managed to create a huge following with her funny, and clever blog. She writes about her life on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma, home-schooling her four kids, and cooking up some wonderful recipes, while photographing her food, her kids and her life on the ranch. She also has a cooking show on Food Network and a new cookbook. You can see, why I would find her so inspiring. I knew she was coming to my hometown to promote her new cookbook, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to brave the crowd, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to find myself in line lumped in with the Pioneer Woman groupies. The last time I found myself on line to meet a celebrity was two years ago in Las Vegas when I met my teenage Dodger crush, Steve Garvey. I started blushing like a schoolgirl and could barely talk. Juan has not stopped teasing me about it. Even though I don’t consider Ree Drummond in the same category as Steve Garvey, I hoped I wouldn’t get star-struck when I met her.
I arrived two hours after the book signing event started, so I thought I would have missed most of the crowd. I was wrong. The line was still wrapped around the building. I found myself standing behind a woman who became a Pioneer Woman fan after baking cinnamon rolls from her cookbook. The couple standing behind me made the hour and a half drive from Bakersfield and brought their beautiful 5 month-old baby. I knew that Ree would love them since she loves babies. I thought to myself that I should have brought Diego, because he could have charmed Ree too.
As I approached the front of the line I could see Ree sitting at the table with her sister Betsy. Ree had been signing books for over 4 hours but she was still cheerful and spending a lot of time chatting with each person. One girl approached Ree and gave Ree her favorite scone mix and some original recipes. The girl had her photo taken with Ree and then they chatted like they were longtime friends. I wondered what I could give Ree? I rifled through my purse. Altoid Mints? Chewing gum? I had nothing to give Ree except my blog business card with my address on it. Ree was so gracious she read it, thanked me and handed it to Betsy, telling her to save it. Maybe after Ree finishes her book tour she will go through her gifts, make some scones, pull out my card, find my blog and read it…Hi Ree! Oh, and thanks for signing my book.
My new friend Ree Drummond.
