This past week marked two great family gathering events in the Shwanda household.  Paul’s brother and five sisters all flew or drove into Santa Cruz (from as far away as Alabama and Ohio) for a family reunion  to celebrate Pop Pop’s 90th birthday. In addition, my ex-husband, Jared, took our two daughters, Sophia and Eva, to his niece’s wedding in New Jersey. Sophia and Eva got to spend the first part of the week with their step dad’s family and the second part of the week with their dad’s family. (Jared’s family is also rather large in that he has one sister and four brothers.)

It was a fun filled, busy and joyful occasion filled with lots of activities during the day with  surfing, sailing and  kayaking, and in the evenings at each other’s homes playing charades, board games and reminiscing over old photos of Pop Pop in the army and on his wedding day. Those were the moments when I looked at my girls blending in with their “step” aunts, uncles and cousins, enjoying themselves and feeling included, even though they don’t share the same heritage, history or genealogy. After Sophia and Eva left for the wedding in New Jersey, where I heard reports that they ripped up the dance floor with their East coast cousins, we had one final big party at our house on the last day of the reunion.

I had planned a menu of grilled chicken kabobs, homemade potato salad and coleslaw. It was  a pot luck and everyone brought their contribution. Paul’s older brother decided he wanted the family to take a trip down memory lane and asked his wife to prepare “bun burgers,” a dish their mother made for them as children. It stirred some fond and not so fond memories. (Apparently not everyone liked the bun burgers.) I didn’t quite get the recipe, but I watched them being prepared. Basically, you prepare ground beef like you are making hamburgers. Throw in some spices and some chopped onions, but instead of adding bread crumbs, pick out the bread from the tops of hamburger buns, which leaves a big O, tear it into pieces and add to the mix. The top of the bun is placed on the bottom half of the bun and then on a cookie sheet. Next, scoop up a  generous dollop of hamburger meat and place inside the opening of the top bun. Bake in the oven at 400 degrees and just before they are done, top with strips, in an X shape, of Kraft processed American cheese. Place back in oven until melted.

I have to say they were pretty darn good and could easily be adapted to something healthy and rather gourmet if using, say, ground turkey, whole wheat buns and  perhaps some goat cheese, instead of the fatty beef and fake cheese. The culinary nostalgia didn’t end there. No. There were fish sticks too! You know, the frozen kind that comes in a box with lots of fillers and mystery ingredients. They were a  once-a-week staple in Paul’s family’s house. Paul’s brother felt that no family reunion was complete without fish sticks and bun burgers. As we were standing around the kitchen, noshing on the retro delicacies, he lamented, “Too bad we don’t have fake milk to go with them.” Anyone who grew up in a large, budget stretching family in the 50′s and 60′s would know what fake milk is. I do. My mom used to take powdered milk, mix it with water and add it to the real milk to make it last a little longer. It was gross, but we accepted it because that’s just the way it was.

As Paul’s family reminisced about their childhood memories, I reflected on my own (I’m one of five kids.) and realized that big families are pretty much the same.  It isn’t just the food, the family vacations, the sibling squabbles and competition for the bathroom that they have in common, but rather the inherent bonds, life lessons and experiences that go with the territory. I’ve always said being part of a big family prepares you for life’s greatest challenges: To be able to get along with anyone, to know how to wait your turn, to accept delayed gratification and to tolerate things that can at times be somewhat unpleasant.

My thoughts wandered to the future as I pictured myself at Sophia’s or Eva’s wedding and imagined all the guests who would attend.  There would be my family, Jared’s family and  Paul’s. It would be  a blended family wedding… and one hell of a party.

There is a 9th grade girl in Sophia’s high school who is pregnant. Eva told me first because she heard it at her school. Then Sophia told me and then everyone else  I know told me. Apparently the girl announced her pregnancy on her Facebook page and it is all anyone and everyone is talking about.

The girl is only a year older than Eva and went to the same grade school. I did not know the family well,  but I feel like I do now. How could this happen? Everyone wants to know. The girl  is not completely sure who the father is (there are four possible candidates) and she is going to have the baby, a boy supposedly, and put the child up for adoption. The mother of one of the suspected fathers has vowed to fight the adoption if the kid turns out to be her grandson. Oy. Double oy.

The scuttlebutt  on the paternal grandma is that she is super religious and never signed the waiver to let her kids take  sex education in health class. The scuttlebutt on the maternal grandma is that she dressed her daughter in provocative clothing, allowed her to wear makeup at an early age and bleached her hair when she was 10. All this I found out in the check out line at the grocery store.

I am not happy that this is happening to this poor girl and boy. And I don’t want to join in on the derision of their parents either, since my mother once told me, “Never criticize other people’s children because you never know what your kids are going to do. (Rumor has it that the mother of the boy in question is quite sanctimonious in the parenting department.) I did welcome the opportunity for discussion this has brought about and I happy and relieved to report that all three of my girls still think boys are gross. I trust that when those feelings change that they will make good choices. I am confident that they will have enough self respect to not have sex with the  football team. It’s been said that the poor girl in question has struggled with low self-esteem and self-worth (obviously) due to her parents ugly divorce. Her dad is apparently emotionally unavailable.  I can only hope that some day she will be able to put all of this behind her. In the meantime, I am holding all of my children close and making sure they know they are loved, so  they won’t go looking for it in all the wrong places.

I took just Eva shopping on Saturday to find a dress for her 8th grade graduation. We made the 30 mile trek to the mall in San Jose. I wanted it to be just the two of us so that the day would be special and all about her. Usually I take the three girls together which means  my attention is divided. Because Eva, the middle child, is so easy going and agreeable, I often worry that she is neglected.

We had a delightful time shopping for dresses and Eva found the perfect one. But ony after a bit of searching. We first went to Macy’s junior department and it was jam packed with beautiful, fancy dresses. Eva tried on several, but none suited her. There was one that I just loved because she looked so lovely in it. It was a bright yellow, flowing floral party dress that suited her olive skin tone beautifully. Eva did not like it. She looked at me and the discarded dresses strewn throughout the dressing room and sighed, “I like the dresses. I just don’t think they’re me.”

I did not protest or try to convince her to settle on one. Instead I remarked cheerily, “Then let’s try another store and we’ll keep searching until you find the dress that is just perfect for you.” And we did. The next stop was Nordstrom’s, who surprisingly had a pretty skimpy selection. We were about to give up when Eva spotted the dress hidden in a  corner on a rack by itself. It was a pinky, mauve satin strapless chemise with a lace overlay. She tried it on. It fit and she loved it. I bought it even though it was a little more than I wanted to spend. And not because I couldn’t resist her pleading look,  but because I know how wonderful it feels to have the perfect dress.

I remember shopping for my 8th grade graduation dress with my mother. We had been searching a while and I sensed my mother’s growing impatience. I finally found the dress of my dreams, but it was too expensive. I knew my mother couldn’t afford it so I didn’t even bother to ask. Instead I picked a cheaper version which my mother purchased and we took it home. I thought I had covered my disappointment pretty well, but apparently not. The next day when I got home from school, there it was lying on my bed …the perfect dress. While I was at school my mother exchanged the dress for the one I really wanted.  I wore that dress proudly as I walked in the graduation procession, wobbling in my first pair of high heels.

After Eva and I purchased the dress we went shopping for shoes. We found the perfect pair: solid mauve suede high heels. Her first.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’m getting old. Old as in… when I bend down to pick up something my knees creak and I’m not sure I can get back up. Old as in… I’m getting red moles of the back of my knees like my mother had. And old as in … sometimes I forget where I left my kids. For example, this past weekend Eva had a sleepover at a friend’s house and she was gone Friday night and all day Saturday. With a houseful of all her siblings and their friends, I hardly missed her. Around 5pm on Saturday night she called me on my cell phone and asked me to come pick her up. And I thought to myself, “Pick you up? Where? All this time I thought you were in your room.” Nooooooo. I’m turning into my mother. Help!!! The red moles, the denial that I am losing my hearing, sight, mind… fill in the ___________. And now… I’m losing my kids!!! When they were babies I used to have nightmares that I drove off and left the car seat on roof of the car. Those were only bad dreams. This is my sad reality. In spite of my exhaustion, when they were little I always knew where they were. Now that they are teenagers, not so much.

I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself since my mom was guilty of  misplacing her children too. When we were kids she used to take us to WaWa after church on Sundays. (WaWa is a Northeastern regional convenience store chain similar to 7Eleven. I wish they had them here because they have the greatest milkshakes.) While Mom was at the deli counter we five kids would run wild through the store. My younger sister Jill and I would dip our hands into the pickle barrels, lick the pickles and throw them back in. (Aahh. Those were the days.) One day, Jill must have been in the bathroom when we left the store and drove home without her. I think we were home about a half hour when my mother  realized her “oversight” and shrieked in horror, “WE LEFT JILL IN WAWA!!!!!!!!!!!” We all clamored into the paneled station wagon (which my father had decorated with embarrassing Flower Power stickers) while my mom sped like a maniac back to the store where we found Jill wandering the aisles aimlessly, oblivious to the fact that we had left her in the store and had gone home without her.  My mother covered well when she told my sister, “Come on, Jill. Time to go.” Just as I did when I told Eva, “Sure, I’ll be right over to get you.” And we wonder why some children have abandonment issues.

Sophia and I spent all of Christmas Eve day baking cookies. She is the most sentimental of my two girls and her particular nostalgia these days centers around food. She wanted to make pizelles, which are Italian waffle cookies flavored with anise that my mother used to make. We borrowed the pizelle iron (kind of like a waffle iron) from my sister Jill who is the keeper of my mom’s pizelle iron. We followed my mom’s  recipe, written on an index card in her handwriting, and according to Sophia, “They turned out just like Grandmom’s.”  We also made snowball cookies and roll out pressed butter cookies with royal icing. Very fun and very yummy and lots of work.  Which is why we only make them once a year.

When it came to parental discipline, my mom was kick ass. No one messed with her. Not even my 6’2″ brother or his friends who towered a foot over her. It wasn’t because she was mean or particularly authoritarian, it was simply because she meant what she said and she never backed down. Ever. And I mean, EVER. She never blinked. As a result, me and my siblings, with the exception of my middle sister Pam and her long-haired-motorcycle-riding-boyfriend, pretty much did what she said. (Years later my mom and I had a conversation about why she never came down harder on my sister Pam. She explained, ” I didn’t want to break her spirit.” She  recognized that a healthy dose of rebellion was  a good thing, and that questioning authority would bolster her from falling victim to the prey of say, Hare Krishnas at the airport or Moonies at the bus station.) My mother’s firm stance as a disciplinary guru gave original  meaning to the words, “Because I said so.”  I think she coined the phrase. And I have employed these techniques and strategies with my own children to much success. How? Because I give good follow through.

For example, I can remember very clearly one day a while ago walking into a grocery store and running into a friend of mine at the check out stand. She and her 5-year-old daughter were in a heated discussion over her daughter’s choice of a candy bar. Her mother had told her  she could have one and the child wanted two. There were lots of tears and ruminations over what to choose and I got the impression this had been going on for quite some time. The mom looked at me imploringly and asked, “What do I do?” And I thought, “YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?”  But instead I said, “You tell her quite emphatically that ‘She can have one, or none. Period.’ And if she gives you a hard time, you put all the candy back, whisk her out of the store and she gets nothing. Next time there won’t be any whining.” She did it and it worked. The kid got the message.

Now I don’t want to sound sanctimonious or self-righteous here,  and as my beloved late mother used to caution, “Never comment on or criticize other people’s kids or parenting skills because you never know how your kids are going to turn out.”,  but the basic premise of good parenting is not that hard …  it is the enforcement that is killer.  Which brings me to the point of this whole discussion.

I would have to say that the biggest challenge of blending families, at least for our family, is the assimilation of diverging parenting styles. I myself come from the school of sit-up-straight-don’t-talk-with-your-mouth-full-turn-off-the-TV-do-your-homework-and-get-that-smirk-off-your-face  camp,  and my darling husband falls more into the category of if-they-want-to-roll-their-clothes-into-a-ball-under-the-bed-why-does-it-matter- philosophy.  So you can see my frustration. Especially since the kids are with me most of the time. I have learned for the sake of family harmony, and for my own sanity, to let a lot of things slide. But the one thing that I am  most adamant about is the “One or None” philosophy, aka “Because I said so.”, which boils down to, “I mean what I say and I say what I mean.” Direct messages with direct consequences are the best tools for disciplining your children. Don’t back down. And don’t blink.

The NY Times just recently published an article about family dinners and a study that said teens who eat with their families less than three times a week are more susceptible to drug and other substance abuse.  The article was called The Guilt Trip Casserole and is causing a public outcry in the mom blogosphere. Working mothers are tired of being blamed for everything. Obesity. Drug addiction. Video game addiction. School dropouts. You name it. The women in the article reasoned they had no choice but to eat takeout in the car while driving their kids to their numerous after school activities.

My  questions are: Why are only women being targeted? Can’t men cook dinner and/or drive the kids around? And why do the kids have so many after school activities? Why can’t the kids walk home? Do we live in such a sprawling society that there are no more neighborhood schools within walking distance? No community support for carpooling? Ever heard of a crock pot? Or Rachel Ray’s 30 minute meals? What about putting the kids to work? My mom worked full time with five kids and when we got home from school (we walked home or took the bus) she would call us and tell us what to do. Set the table. Make the salad. Bread the chicken cutlets. I always say that I learned how to cook over the phone.

The bigger problem is that our culture is obsessed with over-scheduling kids to the point that they have absolutely no free time. Life has become like the proverbial hamster wheel and we can’t get off. Maybe my kids are slackers, but they are not that busy. Eva has soccer two days a week after school. She also wants to take dance lessons and I said she could do that when soccer is over. Not at the same time. It is too much. Last night when she got home from practice she and Cheryl worked on  their dance routine in her room. Eva is also teaching herself how to juggle.  Sophia did her homework and jumped on the trampoline. Mark played his guitar and watched the baseball game. My kids were home at a reasonable hour.  I cooked dinner and we ate it together. Grant it, it was not an elaborate meal, just boiled pierogies and jarred applesauce, and we ate at the kitchen counter instead of the dining room table, but it wasn’t fast food in the back of the station wagon either. And I do this alone with a husband who travels. The kids pitch in. They do the dishes, walk the dog, fold laundry and Sophia, my right arm, helps with the driving. I also have a great support network of friends who help out when needed.  I learned this from my mother. She knew how to delegate  and that’s the secret.

As I have mentioned before, I grew up in a family with five kids. My ex-husband was one of six and Paul, my current husband, was the second youngest of seven. I did not have the good fortune of meeting Paul’s mother. She died several years before I met him. But her memory lives on in the stories I hear from his five, wonderful, loving sisters who are all now devoted mothers themselves. I am assured by all of them that “she would have loved me.” And I am most certain, that I would have adored her too.

I was, however,  lucky enough to have had a very close relationship with both my mother and my first mother-in-law, who both passed away in the same year five years ago. I think both of them, in their own way, gave me advice that I didn’t understand at the time, but I SURE AS HELL DO NOW.  They told me in their own words that,  “Sometimes you have to give some of your children more attention because they need more attention. You can’t always be fair.”

Having been a neglected middle child myself, I am sensitive to the fact  that my own over-attention to the most vocal and needy children in our family, which happens at the moment to be the two oldest, Sam and Sophia,  and the youngest, Cheryl,  is giving short shrift to the seemingly happy, well-adjusted middle kids in our family; Mark and Eva.

Middle kids, by the very nature of their birth order, tend to be easy going and low maintenance.  While their younger siblings are screaming for attention, (and getting it because they are the adorable baby of the family)  they tend to follow  sheepishly and quietly into the foot steps of their trail blazing older siblings. They don’t make a fuss, therefore they don’t get much notice.

This is the case in our family. And I should know better. As I said, I myself, was a neglected middle child. While my mother was wringing her hands over my sisters and their motor-cycle-riding-long-haired-boyfriends, I was solving all my problems alone. When I felt snubbed or left out at school, I didn’t take my gripes to my parents because they had bigger “I-think-my-kid-is-smoking-pot” fish to fry. I was determined to not make the same mistakes as my parents, and guess what? I did.

This past week, both Mark and Eva had their own mini melt downs. They have, in their own way,  expressed to me that their needs are not being met. Mark is struggling in school with some subjects and could use some tutoring. He’s afraid to speak up because he does not want to be a burden. He also feels unrelentlessly picked on by his older brother, Sam,  who does not know when a joke is no longer a joke. Mark needs support. He needs to know that his feelings matter and are heard. I listen and have learned some new vocabulary. For instance, when someone does something particularly offensive, it is called, “really douchy.” I now know that “douchy” is bad.

Eva, for her part, wants to learn how to sew and she wants me to teach her. Long ago I promised her I would, and we even went so far as to buy patterns and material, but the life got away from us and we never got around to it. I was too busy. I neglected my easy going middle child to meet the needs of my ever demanding older and  youngest children. This past week I asked her why she didn’t sign up for the after school fashion design class at school and she replied, “Because I was afraid I would suck at it. All my friends know how to sew and I don’t .” I felt horrible. If I could have crawled into a hole and hid I would have. Instead I vowed to her that I would indeed make good on my promise to teach her to sew and last night we cut out a pattern and this weekend we are going to put it together.

I may be slow, but eventually I get the message. And in the end, hopefully, all of my five children feel special, unique and equally well-attended.

There are certain events in life one has to endure. For me it was the acid wash jeans debacle of the ’80′s, frizzy perms, the grunge look in the ’90′s, anything having to do with Madonna, that whole  weird low carb thing a few years ago, my own puberty and…. my children’s teen years. Torture. Excruciating. As in I’d rather have pins shoved under my nails while having a root canal. Without Novocaine. And it’s such a shock to me because my kids used to be so sweet. What happened? Did I so something wrong or did someone slip them a teen angst mickey in their vitamin enhanced flavored water at soccer practice? Is this why I had kids? I don’t think so.

There was a time, not too long ago, when they just adored me. They couldn’t be away from me and shared every funny story and detail about their day. When Eva was little she used to get up in the morning, come out of her room, see me at the end of the long hallway leading up to the kitchen, holler “MOMMY!” and run to me, leaping into my arms. Now she barely speaks to me. I get one word answers at best and the looks… well, if looks could kill …(Even though Eva has friended me on Facebook she has given me strict orders to NEVER write to her or send her a message.)

I guess it doesn’t help that I have turned into my mother with all of those annoying traits and habits  like– speaking all of my thoughts out loud, losing patience with anything having to do with vanity or self-consciousness, not keeping up with or caring when things go in or out of style.  And an inability to speak complete sentences in which I don’t struggle for noun recall  or remember names of people I have known for years.

I suppose I can sympathize with their frustrations with me because I admit to  having the same feelings about my own mother. She always wanted to know what was going on when  I just wanted to be left alone. I now  understand how she must have felt. Still… it is hard to not intervene when you see your children moping around the house, obviously hurting inside. You just have to learn to let them sort things out for themselves and trust that everything is going to turn out all right. In those instances I am never sure what to do. But one thing that I am most certain of, and that is I will always love my children unconditionally, whether they are nice to me or not.

I remember very clearly the day I looked down at my youngest child, Eva, nursing at my breast and proclaimed, ” Snack bar’s closed, kid. Get off my boob.” She was almost three so it wasn’t like I hadn’t done my time. Sophia was six so I calculated I had been pregnant or lactating for almost seven years. Enough. It was time. I was ready to move on.

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