Sometimes I look back on some of my posts and I think I paint such a rosy picture that maybe you might get sick of me and think that I am laying it on a little thick. I wax on about how I married the most perfect man and have the most perfect life. Well I don’t. I am here to tell you that I have snot on my couch. With five teenagers, it comes with the territory.  I have found candy wrappers under the couch, nail clippings, moldy sandwiches and now…. snot.

I did marry a lovely man. That part is true. But he did not come to me in isolation. He had three children and the blending with my two has not been an easy task. It was the hardest on me, truthfully, because I am a clean freak neat nick  as in, it bothers me if the butter knives in the silverware drawer are not facing all the same direction. Or the bath towels aren’t folded a certain way. And I cannot for the life of me understand why no one seems to do things the way I want them done. So you can see my challenges here. These days with grad school and all, my standards of cleanliness have gone lower than I ever thought they could go. But I have my blinders on. One must in order to survive. I’ve had a lot of practice. When I lived in NYC in my early 20’s the view from my apartment was a brick wall. I made it a point to never look out that window. My motto now is, “Don’t look under the couch.”

When I found myself a single mom at 40 with two young daughters, (ages 6 and 9) after 12 years of marriage, to what turned out to be a gay guy, I have to confess that I found myself in a state of total dating anxiety. I hadn’t dated in 15 years and quite frankly I wasn’t sure I remembered how. I was insecure for sure and worried that men would no longer consider me attractive.  I had been a wall flower in high school and then went on to a college where the ratio of men to women was one to eight. And then there was the marriage to the gay guy, so you can see that not only were my dating skills rusty, they had sucked to begin with. Read the rest of this post on Momversation.

I’m starting a new blog called Stepmoms Talk that I want to be a starting and on-going resource for stepmoms. There are lots of us out there and we all come from different perspectives and stepmom situations. Some of us have kids of our own, some don’t  and then have some or don’t. Some have ex-wives to deal with and some don’t, but we all have one thing in common and that is we are helping to raise our husband’s/spouse’s/parrtner’s children and we want to do it right. I am looking specifically for stepmom bloggers to be panelists on weekly videos, kind of like momversation, and every week there will be a topic for discussion that runs the gamut of our collective experiences. It will definitely have a positive tone because we are here to help people offering inspiration, advice and constructive criticism only. If  you are interested, please contact me at carol@shwanda.com.

A few months ago, in a drastic cost cutting measure, I had to let the housekeeper go. I figured with enough able bodies around pitching in we could all handle it. So far so good. The kids have taken over doing the laundry, “cleaning” their rooms ( I use that term loosely)  and bathrooms. I vacuum and Paul mops and all is well. The only thing no one seems to volunteer for is the dusting. Since I am allergic to dust I usually only tackle the task once every six months or so which is why I always had a housekeeper.

A few weeks ago, before we put out all the Christmas decorations, I summoned my five kids into the laundry room, gave each of them a dust rag, sprayed it with some Pledge and sent them all into a different room in the house. They complained, but their objections weren’t what you would expect like “boring, tedious, dirty…” No. My dusting method was simply not sophisticated enough for them or as Sophia put it, ” Mom (elongate the monosyllable in a lengthy whine) your dusting is just so low tech.” Low tech dusting???? “Why don’t you get a Swiffer? If you got a Swiffer I would dust all the time.” Really???  So I bought a Swiffer, which is  cheap flimsy piece of crap probably made by slaves in a foreign country stealing manufacturing jobs from us, but I bought one anyway and my kids LOVED IT. They all fought over it. So. The moral of this story is  …. If you want to get your kids to dust get high tech and buy a Swiffer. Note:  I am not a paid endorser of this product.

Baby Jack born Jan. 4th, 9 lbs 8 oz

We have a new baby in the family, my great nephew born on Jan. 4th to my niece Joy and her husband Dale. (Not their real names.) Joy is my sister Nina’s daughter and she and everyone else in our family is ecstatic about the birth of the first baby born in our family in 13 years –my Eva being the youngest grandchild on my side of the family.

Since I live on the opposite coast as most of my family, I have to rely on stories and photos, text messaging and Facebook to hear what is going on. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall the night Joy and Dale brought their new son home from the hospital. I heard he cried in the middle of the night and they looked at each other frantically and exclaimed, “Oh my god, he’s crying. What do we do?”

Been there. I have a very vivid memory of bringing my first born, Sophia, home from the hospital. She was warm and cuddly nestled in her baby snuggy when I put her down in her new crib. And then a few hours later she woke up wailing and would… not…stop. It was at that moment when I couldn’t pawn the kid off onto someone else as in, “Here, your kid’s crying. Take it.” that I realized I was a parent and there was no turning back. I tried to nurse Sophia, but that did not go over well. I rocked her in my brand new glider rocker and that didn’t help either. I was fretful, resentful, and overwhelmingly exhausted. I just wanted this baby to stop crying and go back to sleep so I could too. And then I just gave in. I made peace with the possibility that I would be up all night and I relaxed and miraculously, she did too and fell back to sleep. I learned a very important parenting lesson very early on and that is to stop resisting the demands of my child and to just surrender to her needs, because a need that is fulfilled goes away.

Over the years I adapted to my new time management style of working in fits and starts as I took many breaks to tie a shoe, prepare a snack or wipe away a tear for my children. Some days seemed to drag on forever (like when Sophia had chicken pox and I had to entertain her by dropping a bouncy ball from our second floor balcony down to the first floor landing to distract her from scratching) yet the years still managed to fly by.  I can remember walking Sophia in a her stroller and middle aged strangers stopping to admire her and wistfully telling me, “I remember when my baby was that small. ” I now know how they feel.

So it is with this thought in mind that I would like to impart some advice to my niece Joy and her husband Dale and to all new parents everywhere: Take the time to enjoy your children. You can dust later. If your son wants you to read to him or help him solve a puzzle, leave the dishes in the sink. You’ll get to them eventually.  Savor the little things like a hand picked bouquet of weeds or his “abstract” art that hopefully wasn’t scribbled on the wall.  Don’t resist. Surrender. And always remember this: If you think he’s wearing you out now, wait ’til he’s a teenager. I know.

This morning while I was cooking breakfast and packing lunches, I  reflected back on my life and thought of all the jobs and skills I have learned over the years that have prepared me for my current role of mom/stepmom to five children. I was once a waitress, a bartender, a cashier, a hotel laundress and a chambermaid. One job I never held was that of a short order cook. BUT I AM  ONE NOW. I’m also a taxi driver (although not so much now that the three oldest are driving), family therapist (lots of territory covered there), event and party planner, tutor, personal shopper and accountant. Oh,  I almost forgot: and cheerleader too. Read the rest of this entry »

Joel Schwartzberg, my newfound cyber friend  is a divorced dad who is  remarried to a woman who by virtue of  her marriage to him, is now a stepmom. He has written a book The 40-Year-Old Version: Humoirs of a Divorced Dad which I plan to read and review later this week. In the meantime, check out his essay titled What Remarried Dads Owe Their Stepmom Wives that appeared this week on the Huffington Post. If you have ever thought, “Oh my god, what have I gotten myself into?” by all means, read this post. I  have to say his words of wisdom and insight came to me at a time when I needed them the most.

Jennifer Newcomb Marine and Carol Marine, the mom and stepmom duo who cowrote the book No One’s the Bitch: A Ten-Step Plan for the Mother and Stepmother Relationship about how they overcame the often contentious and adversarial relationships moms and stepmoms face, will be on Dr. Phil tomorrow so tune in. We are all cheering for them. Way to go Jennifer and Carol. I believe Jennifer’s ex, Carol’s husband is also on the show. Should be interesting. I told my daughter to get a ride to soccer practice so I can stay home to watch it.

Often times I feel like my life is one big negotiation. Every day I seem to be holding my cards close to the vest deciding which ones to play, when to bluff and when to fold. For instance,  yesterday morning Paul went out the front door to get the paper and banged himself in the nose with the door because I had left the chain on, he didn’t realize it and slammed the door in his face. Ouch. At dinner last night he asked me, “When you lock the front door, could please not put the chain on?” My response was that I always put the chain on, especially when he is out of town. It makes me feel safe. It is a habit I got into when I was a single mother. And then I thought, “Why do I have to change? Why can’t you just remember that I do this, check before opening the door and this way you won’t bonk your forehead again? ” You’d think if he did this once he’d remember.

He conceded. I won that battle. Just as I sort of did over the issue of the area rug in front of the kitchen sink. I don’t like area rugs because I always trip over them and I see them as just one more thing that I have to clean. But Paul was insistent that we have one so we got one and when it wore out, I threw it out. He keeps asking me when I am going to replace it and I tell him I haven’t found any that I like. But the truth is, that rug is never coming back.

Now I’ve made my share of compromises too in the cohabitation department. Or have I? Let me think for a moment. Yes. Actually it is more on the tolerance level. For instance, I have learned to overlook his toothpaste spit on the bathroom towels, the crumbs he leaves behind on the dining room table and the sunflower seeds I find all over my car. (Oh and I can’t forget the lint from his pants pockets that always ends up on my dresser.) These are things that I have learned to overlook because as an adult, I know in the big picture, they are not that important. But through the eyes of a child, they are HUGE.

I’ll never forget when we were first contemplating the move Eva asked me, “Are we going to smell like them?” Smell like them??? She went on to explain that every family smells differently. We figured it was mostly because of the bath soap and laundry detergent they used combined  with various food smells. Eva was insistent that she did not want to smell like them. And I assured her we would still smell like ourselves.

What it all comes down to in a kid’s mind, and often in an adult’s mind, is: Who has the power and the control? Just as I wondered last night  to Paul, “Why do I have to change? Why can’t you just remember to take the chain off before you open the door?” My sense of autonomy was impugned. I didn’t want to be challenged on something so trivial to him that was so important to me. And he took it like a man and let me have my way because he knew that my sense of security was worth the risk of him hitting himself in the nose with the door.

I continue to hope that I am modeling to my children the life skills they will need to become thoughtful, considerate adults so that they not only learn  how to assert themselves  for the issues that are most important to them, but  also see things through other people’s  perspective.  It’s called negotiation. It’s called Democracy. It doesn’t always seem fair, but sometimes you just have to compromise. Even if it means smelling (just a little) like them.

As a followup to my most recent post, One or none, I wanted to share with you an article I wrote for the Examiner titled Blended family discipline.