"I love it when you help me walk the dog." "Your laugh is the best!" "I appreciate it when you help me fold laundry." "I love being your stepmom!" "I love watching you play basketball."
These are just a few of the notes that are found on the outside of each of our kids' bedroom doors during the month of February.
Read MoreLet me just get this out of the way: being the second wife and stepmom is hard and not a lot of fun at times. I started to write about how being second is really great and happy, but that’s just not true. It’s a lot harder in some ways than being the first.
Being the second wife and second mom is incredibly difficult, but it’s also joyful. To read more about my experience as “the second” visit the original article posted on Her View From Home.
Read MoreThanksgiving and Christmas are supposed to be warm, joyful, magical, spirited and sparkly. They’re all about family. But can it really be that way in a new version of a family? Those first couple of years after divorce, I wondered, “Can it be Christmas if you’re not with all the people you love on December 25"?
Read MoreI think I’ve forgotten how to have fun…
Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that walking the dog, grocery shopping, and watching reality TV was a perfectly fine substitute for actual fun and true play.
Read more about what my family taught me by visiting the full article on herviewfromhome.com
Read MoreI had purchased three Bento boxes and spent weeks scrolling through Pinterest pages of nut-butter sandwich faces, animals made out of quinoa, organic berries and homemade flax cookies. As I stared down my new reality of being a working, divorced mom with a kid who I was sure would never eat hot lunch, these cute pictures taunted me as yet another way I was sure to fail as my son started his journey into elementary school.
Read MoreTrying to manage the kids’ activities is like trying to juggle while riding the spinning teacups at Disneyland.
In my house, we have three kids within a range of two years. Like a lot of families today, our children might be categorized as “over-programmed."
Most weeks we find ourselves running between competition dance, baseball, basketball, golf (or whatever sport is in season) and piano lessons. We'll even occasionally throw in in a showcase, performance or science fair at school.
We try to monitor this, but frequently an extra lesson or an extra team sneaks in here and there. And, unfortunately, there are just times where events overlap — or we can’t shuffle work around to be somewhere at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday — and we miss their event.
I feel the pang of guilt every time this happens.
Read MoreIn June 2018, I went from being the mom of an only child to the parent of three kids — my son and my husband’s two daughters.
I knew early into the relationship with my husband that not only was he the right one, but that his girls were the right ones, too. I had a deep love for all of them. What I didn’t have a clue about was how hard all of this would be for me to adapt to. While we have been incredibly fortunate — the kids have all bonded beautifully — there’s no “What to Expect When You’re Expecting a Whole New Family.”
Read MorePerhaps you’re familiar with this. It’s when my guard is down just enough to believe that we could—and should definitely, without question—have another baby.
Read MoreI am a stepmother and, if I'm being honest, it's not something I ever dreamed of being. I don't think any stepmom does.
As a young child, I didn't carry around my baby doll pretending I was its second mother. We don't dream of being a stepmom in the same way we dream of being moms. In our dreams, we're the mom our children know first; the only mom they'll ever come to love. We don't dream of being second. Being a stepmom means someone's first dream has ended in heartache.
But here I am — grateful to be a stepmom by design.
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