A jew and a christian walk into a bar…

A jew and a christian walk into a bar. No its not a joke, that’s what happened. My first date with Adam was at a bar in St Kilda. Having two people from very different backgrounds come together and raise a blended family certainly has its challenges, especially during the holidays.

The festive season is almost upon us and what a confusing mess it is at our house. Adam’s family is jewish so he has grown up with a strong disconnection to all things Christmas. As a teenager he would avoid shopping centres like the plague and would sometimes spend Christmas Day at the cinema, enjoying the air con and empty seats. Meanwhile, in Brisbane, in desperate need of a hair straightener, I would without fail spend each Christmas morning at church and for as long as I can remember presents, decorations and Christmas lunch were a very big deal.

We never have the big kids on Christmas Day so they miss out on our extended family lunch but we always have them on Boxing Day. Every year we celebrate as a family a few days before Christmas, on a day determined by their mum when drafting out the division of kids time. This Christmas break we will do a few days on and then a few days off leading up to our big 2 week holiday with them (the longest period in a row that we have ever had them). After this time, mum will take them to Hawaii for 2 weeks. Yes fine, she wins this round. For the little ones, A & J will grow up used to the idea that Santa comes early to our house (I think they’ll be ok).

Christmas can be a hard time for the kids. Its an emotionally charged time of year. Yes they get “double presents” but they don’t get to have both of their families together. Also with our rule about not taking toys etc from house to house, just like with their birthdays, it can be hard to give them a pile of presents only for them to have to leave back to mums and not be able to enjoy them until next time. The kids asked me last year how Santa knew how to find them at both houses. I told them he has an app that tells him when you’re at your mums and when you’re at your dads. They were satisfied.

So here you have 2 very different backgrounds, a lot of uneven expectations & a very irregular kids schedule. Christmas, or Christmakah as we call it can be a very unpredictable time of year.

Adam’s version of Christmakah goes something like this. A few presents, not too many because its their birthday soon (a month after). A tree…but not a Christmas tree, just a plant we already have around the house with a few decorations on it. Me: Adam we don’t have any plants big enough. Adam: Let’s go shopping! So, Adams version of Christmakah is shopping for plants for our house.

My version of Christmakah: Christmas decorations spewed all around the house. I want to dress as Santa and come down the chimney. I am elf on the shelf. I am Christmas pyjamas. I am photos with Santa and presents equal to a months wage.

Compromise.

The first few years Adam and I were together I was so restrained. Considering the big kids are at their mums on actual Christmas Day I was happy to keep it low key at ours. But then something happened. I had kids. And suddenly I couldn’t hold it in anymore. The joy and wonder I experienced as a child was so special and I want our kids to have that. I want them to tell a big hairy man what they want for Christmas and for once have it not be their dad.

This year I finally took a stand and did what I do every time I want to ease Adam into an idea. I pretended it was on sale. “Babe? I’d like to get a Christmas tree this year for the kids and at Kmart they’re only $25, they’re 600% off”. Adam: “yep, ok that sounds good”. See! gentle and calm and he is totally fine with the idea. It’s irrelevant that I came home with 60 baubles, tinsel up the wazoo, twinkling lights, oversized Christmas stockings with the kids names on them and Mariah Carey’s Christmas album. The important thing is we scored a Christmas tree bargain! And lets not mention that I put the tree up in early November.

Our little family is a funny one, with our unforeseeable schedules and our vastly different upbringings but I think a lot of families have quirks like that and Christmas is a great time to embrace all our differences. It’s a time to reflect on the year we just survived and to spend way more quality time together. Then, when the big kids go to mums, its a time to get drunk.

 

 

 

 

 

The school pick up

Oh dear, the school pick up. It’s one of the most awkward things you can do as a step parent. For some reason you are treated differently to say, grandparents or nannies coming to collect.

It is like walking into a Range Rover battle field but I don’t know who’s on who’s side. I immediately withdraw into my head. That woman gave me the evil eye, she must be best friends with my step kids’ mum, oh no that woman waved hello to me, she must be scouting for information. Probably all in my head, or maybe not. There are some lovely genuine people there but then there are some not so.

I’m not sure why parents find my presence there so bizarre. Not many are friendly. I think I’ve made 2 friends there in twice as many years, a sweet little Greek grandmother and a woman who left and moved back overseas. Just my luck! I have asked for phone numbers to do play dates at the kids request but then the messages are ignored.

They are a close knit school so it’s hard to deny the strange silence in the air when I wait with the other mothers. And it’s been great for my self esteem to be a big fat fatty fat pregnant woman for 18 months of those school runs.

As a step parent, I am not privy to notices that go home on mums days, I have no idea what is happening most of the time. There is a school app but it doesn’t let you know before things happen, it sends you highlights of the event you missed that day. The kids are constantly telling me last minute that tomorrow they need to wear a onesie. Tomorrow is wear a funny beanie day. Tomorrow is Italian day. In fact there is not a week that goes by that there isn’t a bloody theme. Last week I superglued cd’s to a black t-shirt for a “shiny” theme. It felt hot. That’s because i was accidentally gluing the shirt together and then to the table. Off to the shops I went to purchase a shiny costume only to find out later the event was cancelled.

It’s not really my place to attend information nights at the school, as was suggested by their school principal during a step parent – rant phone call last week, I just want to have a bit of communication I lamented to her. For example, k has attended this school for 4 years and I literally just found out they are “a rubbish free lunch box” school (no packets etc) I was horrified! I have been sending them to school with the dream lunches I never received as a child… packets of chips, juice box, chocolate. Once instead of a sandwich, I sent flippin fairy bread! Oh the horror! And to make matters worse, the principal let me know one of their lunch breaks is strictly for fruit only. I then had flashbacks to all the times I couldn’t be bothered going to the shop and sent their lunch box fruitless. Oh their poor little faces sitting there while their friends gobbled up their organic fruit from their bento box while my kids would have to wait till next break for their evil stepmother complex carbohydrates, saturated fat, environment killing box of death.

Please rest assured they have rubbish free lunches now. I open the pizza shapes and put them in a container.

Lets not forget the time P was in prep and unbeknownst to me the preppies didn’t have school on Wednesdays for the first 4 weeks. There I left her in what was on any other day was her school line. “Oh you’re so lucky to be first in line today” I encouraged her… only to find out half an hour later she would have been sitting in that line alone all day…

Not only do the parents give me strange looks, have you tried explaining the complexities of a new age family unit to 7 year olds? Who even are you? they ask. Mel. Are you P’s mum? No, her stepmum. Is that baby you’re holding her step sister? No it’s her sister. So are you her mum?

Luckily though, Adams new job has given him some flexibility and he has been doing a lot more of the drop off and pick ups. Fine by me!

A bun in the oven & wolves at my door

Woah, being a step mum when pregnant sucked! I don’t know if mine was a unique experience but I struggled to find anyone who understood or who could help me make sense of my feelings. I must have googled “Why don’t I like my step kids when pregnant” or different variations of that sentence a hundred times.

We were thrilled to announce to the kids they would be having a baby sister. It was all very exciting! I had visions of shopping for baby room decor with my step kids and choosing names together. Unexpectedly though, I found it very hard to have them around for 9 months. There were many days of locking myself in my bedroom and asking if Adam could take them out for ice cream. “She’s just so tired’ he would tell them. I went from super cool Mel to mean Mel and I hated it.

Obviously there are a lot of hormonal changes happening in your body when pregnant and I blame a lot of it on that. However, this seemed to go a step further and was almost a primal maternal instinct to protecting my baby. From what, I have no idea. It was a bit of a rough time for us but thankfully as soon as the baby was born, it went away!

The same thing happened 2 years later when I was pregnant with their baby brother. This time we were more prepared for it and it didn’t seem to hit us so hard. I just had my “grumpy days” and Ad would know to take cover.

When you live with kids that aren’t your own and don’t have a good relationship with their mother it makes it very difficult to feel completely at ease in your own home. When my first baby was born I was so embarrassed to breastfeed in front of the kids.Even now, I triple lock the doors before I have a shower. I hide bills and private things in case the kids see them and innocently tell mum. I don’t share every part of my life in case she uses it against us. I probably flatter myself with how much I think she’d devour the information from our house but I’m no idiot, especially when it comes to shared custody.

Being a step mum while pregnant was difficult but seeing K & P with their little sister and brother is worth it all! They absolutely adore each other. There is a benefit to less time together in that they all rarely fight at our house as their time together is so precious. We never ever use the term half-sister or half-brother. The little babies have connected me to my step kids in an unmistakable way now, I’m the mum of their siblings. You can try and play down “dad’s partner” but never that.

 

Not quite a big sister, different to an aunty

Before I knew what had happened, I became a step mum. This was not where I saw myself, it was somewhat thrust upon me. If I wanted Adam, he was a packaged deal. Some people hate the name “step mum” but to me it’s really special. The kids don’t say it to my face, that’s weird. They call me mel or mel-mel or melly.

K was always more open to our relationship from the start, be it his age or personality. When he was 5 years old doing arts and crafts he wrote on a cardboard box that I was his stepmum, I took that box out of the bin and hid it in my cupboard. P has always had a harder time with the concept. Fiercely loyal to mum and younger in age and maturity, she’s had a hard time of explaining my presence at school or party pick ups. Who’s that lady?. Err, that’s Mel. At 7 years of age she only just told me she loves me and it was on a piece of paper. It’s now in my cupboard too.

Finding my place in the household has been a long process. They have memories from before I came to live with them, which isolates me. Luckily for me, I have now been with them for almost half their lives so we have many shared memories.

At the start, my dynamic with the kids was very much a friendship, big sister-ish in a way and all issues were sorted out by dad. However our relationship has evolved, certainly since having my own babies and I feel way more hands on and involved in their parenting. Mind you, all issues still get sorted out by dad. He really has the hardest job of all, keeping everyone happy.

Its a unique role, that of a step parent, you are qualified to wash a child’s hair but not have a say in their schooling. You will let them crawl into your bed in the morning, yet you feel unwelcome at their music concert. You will help raise them yet wonder if they’ll have enough seats for you at their graduation…

 

 

 

 

When Adam met Mel

“By the way, I have two gorgeous kiddos” he said.

This was not part of my plan. When Adam and I met, I immediately shut him down once I heard he had kids. Bit rude, yes but let’s be honest, nobody wants to inherit someone else’s baggage, especially not the kind that needs to be tucked in at night. Recently separated and working long hours at the cafe I still had with my ex husband, I was just looking to play. “You seem lovely but I’m not really interested in kids, plus you’re a bit old” I told him cheekily.

Fast forward some years and we are now a happy family of 6. I guess you could say Adam is quite persuasive. It hasn’t been easy and we’ve still got a lot to work through but like I said on the day I met his two kids for the first time “This is the most important day of my life” and I knew it was, because I was joining a family that already existed. It wasn’t the same as 2 single people coming together. They made room in their life for me and the kids would have to come first, which was a reeaaaaaally hard thing to accept!  Especially to someone in their 20’s with not much kid experience.

Becoming a stepmum wasn’t my first choice, it is so hard to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it the strange feelings that you feel. And the many meltdowns and tantrums that will occur (from me, not the kids). Not only are you caring for children that you aren’t biologically connected to, you need to deal with their mother as an ever present person in your life. Most exes you never see again, in blended families Dad will text with bio mum most days. We can’t move interstate, we cant take the kids on holidays without permission, I do school drop offs with other parents that may prefer bio mum and treat me accordingly. We don’t let clothes or toys go from house to house so there is a constant battle to ensure all the things we buy them stay in our house! The list goes on. Fun and games!

But at the end of the day, this is my family now and I wouldn’t change a thing. Yes, sometimes I still warn my single friends who are dating someone with kids to “RUN!” but me, I got lucky, I pretty much hit the jackpot as far as cool step kids and a supportive and understanding partner. It’s still hard though and we haven’t even hit the teenage years yet…

Don’t call me jellybeans!

Within a few short months of dating Adam, I knew this was going to be something serious. During this time our dates were strictly on “kid free” days and I knew only of the kids through photos and stories. I had already been to several family functions but only if they fell on a day he didn’t have the kids. At one of these functions, family friend Karen announced “Everyone’s welcome to my house for a bbq next weekend, you too Mel”. Unlucky for Adam this fell on a “kids” day so he was at a crossroads.”Just bring them all” the family gently suggested (read: forced).

On the day of Karen’s bbq, I arrived early and on my own. Karen, who I had met for the first time a week ago concocted a “back story” for the kids that we were old friends who had travelled together. I already knew Grandma and Grandpa, aunties, uncles and friends. The aim was to show the kids I was known by everyone so they felt more comfortable around me. I was nervous. My own nieces and nephews live in Brisbane so I really didn’t have much experience around young kids. My customers at the cafe had spent the week giving me tips to win them over but only one stuck in my head, win over the big brother and the little sister should follow suit. It felt like a job interview. I knew that if they didn’t like me, it probably wouldn’t work out with Adam.

Adam arrived with the kids. He was acting weird, I realised it was awkward for him to have his two worlds collide. I said hi to the kids, they ran away to play. Anticlimax.

Later that afternoon a game of soccer started, I started kicking with K then after a while P joined in. They asked me again what my name was and I said as a joke “Jellybeans” but then added “Don’t call me jellybeans!”. Well K & P thought this was the funniest game ever and proceeded to call me jellybeans while I pretended to be angry and crazy every time they said it. This carried us through the afternoon. I told them how I lived above the toy shop in Elsternwick. I walked them to the car after the bbq and K began to draw a map from his house to mine. I was in.

Over the course of the next year we took things so so slowly with the kids, simple trips to the cafe, plays in the park, plenty of time with their dad without me there. Behind the scenes though, my relationship with Adam was travelling so fast and  we already wanted to move in together. So, we did. In what you might call bizarre, I moved in with Adam and didn’t tell the kids. I would spend the days with Adam and the kids but on the nights they slept over, I would get up after story time and go sleep at Adam’s parents house. The things you do!

After a time we felt the kids were ready, we let bio mum know we were going to live together, she took it really well (not). The first night I slept at the house while the kids were there, I bought everyone ugly pajamas, we played board games and had a big sleepover in the lounge room! Before long it felt normal and comfortable having everyone in the house.

It was strange, being a “couple” half the week in a quiet house and then having visitors who really aren’t visitors at all come and stay half the week. They have their own rooms and their own things. Friends over the years have told me they find it odd, why not let them share a room or let them bring their clothes from mums house, save you the trouble. Why not let them stay at mum’s house when they are sick. But it really doesn’t work that way. When they are at our house, it is their house. They have a right to their own things and their place in our family isn’t lessened just because they cant be here all the time. They have a life with mum and a life with us.

Mums the word

The kid’s mum. sigh. How can you speak badly about someone who loves and cares about her kids so deeply. How can you speak badly about someone you don’t really know except through infrequent interactions and stories from their ex. All I can say is that the relationship between stepmum and bio mum is destined to be a rocky one. Yes, I have heard stories of it working, of people becoming best friends but that’s not my reality.

I tried, goodness knows I tried. The first time I met “mum” I covered up my tattoos, brought fresh bread and homemade jam from my cafe which was refused. “I’m on my way out” she said, leaving me standing there embarrassed, with my olive branch. The first year was the hardest, phone calls and accusations of things I was doing wrong. “Mel bought P a gift but didn’t buy K one” (not true) “P told me that Mel hit her today” (not true) “If you insist on taking the kids away for the weekend I would prefer you & Adam got bunk beds, not share a bed” (no).

I try my hardest to think what it would be like to be the bio mum and have a complete stranger help raise my child. Because that is what I do, when they are at our house I am the “mum”. When they are with us, I (along with dad of course) make school lunches, I do P’s hair, wash their clothes, clean their rooms, I answer their questions about the world, I provide the things they need and I care for them. I struggle to understand why she wouldn’t want to have a positive relationship with me for the sake of the kids but she makes it utterly impossible.

We spent the first few years on our best behaviour, not a bad word was ever spoken about mum and stories of their life at mums house were encouraged, however in the past year, now that they are older we have had a frank conversation with them about our relationship with her and the kids rarely mention her to us now. Which is sad, but important for our sanity and the day to day running of our household.

Yes I’m dreaming of a world where stepmum and biomum walk hand in hand and care for the same kids with respect. But for now I will continue to do my best. It’s hard. Its hard to clean out their lunch boxes when I could easily send them back smelly and yoghurt filled. Its hard to search the house for all the things that need to go back to mums house when I could keep them here and know it would drive her crazy. Its hard to see the kids excited about yet another new toy or pair of Nikes mum bought them at a time we were struggling financially but always made the child support payments. Its hard to make friends with a parent at school only for them to mysteriously stop talking to us…

Its just hard.