All in Dealing with the Ex- Wife

RESPECT THE BUBBLE

Lisa Hartman
Blended Families, Dealing with the Ex- Wife, Life as a Step-Mom, Step-kids

RESPECT THE BUBBLE a phrase my brother created a number of years ago when someone was invading his personal space, namely my kids!  A kind way of saying - back the hell away - respect my personal space.  My kids of course fell in LOVE with the phrase, using it often.  Sometimes with complete seriousness and other times with alot of laughter. The phrase belonged to my kids until last week.

THE BUBBLELittle Hart mentioned her Mom (Greta) was coming by to pick her up for a few hours.  Typically that means, Greta text messages Little Hart when she arrives, asking her to come out to the car.  On rare occasions when she comes to the door, we invite Greta into our home while she waits for Little Hart.

On that particular evening, Raylan and I were sitting side by side in "our" spot aptly named the love seat.  My legs were draped across  Raylan, me and the girls were gathered round watching the bat video.  Yes the bat video! Raylan had extracted the creature from our sun shade on the back of the house a few minutes earlier.  All four of us were laughing hysterically, reliving the horrifying bat extraction when the doorbell rang - it was Greta.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Lisa Hartman
Blended Families, Blended Family Traditions, Dealing with the Ex- Wife, Life as a Step-Mom, Step-kids

It's road trip day with my two favorite chickee's - Elle and Little Hart. We're leaving the boys behind! 

 

Road Trip with the Girls

Our girls trips and boys trips have been a part of our family life almost since it's inception. The girls love to shop, shop and then shop some more - 11 hours is our record so far! The boys love watching every kind of sporting event under the sun. There is no sport they won't watch! On our family trips we try to get a good mix of what the girls and boys enjoy doing, but sometimes it's just fun to do what you enjoy doing all day and night long without feeling like the other half would rather shoot themselves. Thus, the separate trips.

Twelve years into our blended family - the trips are officially a Hartman Family tradition. A tradition that all the kids look forward to doing and talking about for years later. As you know, Elle is my daughter and Little Hart my step-daughter. The girls trips have really gone a long way in creating and cementing the bond between Elle and Little Hart, my relationship with Little Hart and the relationship between Mom and daughters. I really credit the trips for making our family closer as a whole closer.

Planning and actually going on the the Girls trips has taken coordination with the other families over the years, but a extra wrinkle has been that Little Hart is my step-daughter. Although I have always considered her my daughter, it's times like these that I'm reminded that I'm not in control of whether Little Hart can go on these trips. Raylan and Greta are.

 

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