Category: Family

Happenings in a 5 child, 2 adult household.

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Blended Families and Lies

Back in January Kristy wrote that she’d like to see more blended families discuss the step part.

Being a step-parent is hard work. The dynamics of the family change almost daily. Dealing with step-parents, biological parents, kids related in all different combinations of blood and marriage… It is difficult. … I know of a few blended families that I read online … but … I don’t read a lot about the ’step’ part.

Like many of Philip’s posts, I thought Kristy’s an inspiration for writing material. Here it is the end of March and little to no references on Reality Me to step-parenting.

Writing about the step part is difficult for me because I don’t view the children as step children despite being their stepfather. I do not want others to think of my children as stepchildren and, despite the awkwardness, I even allow other people to address me with the wrong last name on occasion. We de-emphasize "step." I think it has come up in discussion with either Noah or Sarah once and we pointed out that Amy and Evan are their brother and sister, and technically, if a qualifier was necessary, they are halfsiblings not stepsiblings.

stepwife- The wife of one’s father and not one’s natural mother.

Beyond that technicality, dealing with the absentee parent in a blended family is difficult. One of our challenges is the lies told by biodad. His version of the events that led to the divorce are far different than Mom’s version. Sarah yesterday declared, "I don’t know who to believe." Biodad is a habitual liar. He is so good at it that I am certain he believes his own lies. It is not fair to the children to tell them conflicting stories. All they need to know is that Biodad and Mom could no longer be together. I’ve directly confronted him on this issue but either he disregards it or needs a reminder. The children do not deserve to have to deal with the stress caused by lies.

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What’s wrong with Blogger?

Are you having problems with Blogger? This error should give a clue.

450 Write error: No space left on device

Why have they allowed a harddrive to remain full for a week instead of fixing the problem? Simply put, Blogger does not have customer service and does not care about its customers. I highly recommend WordPress over Blogger. I will happily help anyone move from Blogger to WordPress. Cathy has moved.

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Splish Splash Now She Needs a Bath

I stole an hour this afternoon and Amy, Evan, Cathy and I took Molly out to the dog park. Molly was very excited and relatively well behaved. Some other dogs were running free and I let Molly off leash. This was the first time she realized she could go in the pond. The other dogs did and she tried to figure out how to simply get a drink but then put a paw in, then two paws, then all the way (it’s shallow at the top of the waterfall), then plop! she laid down. The entire time she is biting at the water as if she hoped to pick it up. She walked in circles chomping the whole time and then started jumping and splashing and jumping and splashing. It was riotous!

While there I was pleased to be complimented by a dog judge and therapy dog trainer for my handling of Molly. She even asked if Molly did shows!

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Put one foot in front of the other!

At 8:45pm last night Evan took his first 5 steps. When I put him down he was standing and I could tell he was going to try a step so I prompted Cathy to look and with each step I said the word "step" which sounded like a machine gun since he walked so rapidly. After the 5th step he fell forward, caught himself on his arms, rolled to a sitting position with a grin that Gerber would have paid to photograph, and immediately tried to stand up again. He almost made it to standing; left foot extended and on right knee. Then he bounced and I swear he said, "step stepstepstepstepstep!" It was quite the special moment.

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Could you, would you save a life?

Yesterday a 13 year old girl, Megan, on Sarah’s Bearden Middle School bus fell over with a heart attack. The girl beside the victom screamed. The bus stopped, students evacuated the bus, paramedics brought in a AED, rushed the girl away, and that’s all we know.

Poor Sarah. Bomb threats, lock downs, and possibly death. Too much reality for a 12 year old. The sad thing is Sarah keeps everything locked inside of her and I can’t get anything but stoic, short answers from her. I was the same way at her age and it pains me because I know that keeping things bottled up can only last so long and eventually it all has to come out; the longer she waits, the harder it will be to deal with the bottled up emotions. I bet she thinks she is being strong; strength would be talking. At least she has caught blog fever and perhaps we can communicate that way. She shared more information about the incident in her blog than I could have dragged out of her with any other means.

Taking advantage of the situation we had this dialog:

Dad: "So Sarah, would you have liked to known CPR to be able help?"
Sarah: "They taught us CPR at camp."
Dad: "So did you try to help?"
Sarah: "She didn’t need CPR. She needed those paddle thingys."
Dad: "An AED? A defibrillator?"
Dad takes a moment to explain CPR, the functions of the heart, lungs and brain, and why CPR saves lives until an AED can be brought on the scene.
Sarah glazes over and tunes Dad out.
Dad asks: "Would you like to be trained in CPR?"
Sarah, exasperated: " I don’t want to learn that medical stuff!"
Dad, starts to explain how she could have helped the girl today, or perhaps her grandparents or even parents.
*Ring ring*
Saved by the bell. The phone rings to end the conversation.

I have to say I found the conversation a little disheartening. More people should be trained with the American Red Cross.

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Make Smarter Children

Today MSN has an article by Martha Brockenbrough titled Two Ways to Make a Kid Smarter. My pet peeve is the horrible eating habits my children exhibit and her first point in the article is "The body portion: Feed your child’s brain."

…more protein, which kept them alert, energetic, and less prone to anemia, an iron deficiency that dulls thinking skills…if they’re not eating a lot of fish, or taking fish-oil supplements, then there might be an opportunity for some gains. Foods rich in omega-3 fats–such as salmon, fresh tuna, herring, and sardine–contain something called eicosapentaenoic acid, or EPA, do three things:

  1. boosts blood flow to the brain
  2. helps make hormones that boost brain function
  3. helps boost the immune system by acting as an anti-inflammatory agent

The study on which this article is based showed results all parents would enjoy.

kids who took fish-oil supplements, which contain omega-3, showed huge improvements in spelling, IQ, and reading. Even their behavior got better.

Her second point is "The mind portion"

The second reason their IQs soared was that their parents put more emphasis on schooling and were more literate themselves.

As parents we must encourage school and help our children see school positively. We need to save our complaints about the teachers, the administration, and the failing education system for times when there are no small ears listening. We also need to continue to improve ourselves as adults. Make time in our hectic schedules to read (take a book into the bathroom, wake up 10 minutes early and read a chapter) and do a brain booster everyday. Our improvement does not have to be a solo activity. Play games with our children (chess, memory, chutes and ladders) and grow their minds as well as yours.

especially when there is leisure time to read or do other brain-boosting activities. Also, people who work jobs that challenge their minds get smarter.

Take time to engage your children.

You need to make sure your little ones are engaging in conversations, practicing making observations, and organizing information in their minds, or they won’t be ready to get the most out of school.

And socialize them.

Kids also need to know how to get along with others–everything from sharing toys to taking turns.

In a stressful day, I find nothing more relaxing than to take a few minute to get down on the floor with Evan and stack blocks for him to knock over, to read a book to Amy or figure out together how to build a bristle block house, to build a model engine with Noah, fight with Sarah, or play chess with Tommy. Oh. Yeah. Maybe I haven’t quite figured out how to interact with a 12 year old girl. These activities, minus the joke about fighting, are wonderfully relaxing, take very little time from our day, and mean so much to the children.

Read the full article.

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From the mouths of babes

We have a guest this morning. Evan and I have just woken and he is in his high chair eating Cheerios.
Elysia, stepping into kitchen, cheerfully: "Good morning Evan!"
Evan, looks coyly over his left shoulder, but winces: "Waaaahhhna"
Evan, quiets, looks back to see Elysia still here, repeats trying to turn around in his seat: "Waaaahhhna"
Elysia steps out.
Evan, smiles and returns to eating Cheerios.

Pretty impressive just how many websites are about Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios, Cheerios? I’ll stop. According to Google there are 135,000 for Cheerios.