All in Life as a Step-Mom

COUNTDOWN TO MOVE-IN DAY

Lisa Hartman
Blended Families, Life as a Step-Mom
I didn’t know when I held his hand for the first time, our first kiss, our first I LOVE YOU that 13 years later Raylan and I would be sharing our life together - sharing our amazing family that we created.  I have been overcome with emotion as we count down the days to Jax moving into his College dorm.  I realize how deeply I love Raylan – love my kids - love our Family of Five.

I remember how I felt with the countdown for the older kids leaving the nest - it couldn't come soon enough for them to be out on their own.  For me it was freedom from a life of constant unhappiness. I know how it sounds to an outsider looking in.  Couldn't you have tried a little a harder? Given a little more? Loved a little more?  All questions I had asked myself a million times.  The bottom line - they weren't interested in being apart of the new family we were creating and I was emotionally worn out trying to entice them to want to be.

HARTMAN - PARTY OF FIVE

Lisa Hartman
Blended Families, Life as a Step-Mom, Step-kids, Step-parenting

I celebrated my 45th birthday on Wednesday - birthday number 12 as a Step Mom! Yikes on both accounts.

Lisa's 45th Birdthday - Opening Gifts

 

Can't believe - I'm well - that old AND I've made it 12 years as a Step Mom. There were a lot of times I wondered if I would make it to 6 years let alone 12.


Being a Step Mom this birthday seemed even more relevant than any other so far. My Step Son Jax was packing up his things to leave for College in another state. He's lived half of his life in our home, he is our son, a member of our family. Most of the day was spent doing last minute laundry, picking up the things we forgot, organizing everything and ultimately packing up the part of this life he wants to take to his new one waiting in another state.

 

Raylan and the kids took me to my favorite restaurant but more importantly "our" family favorite restaurant that we frequent for most of our special occasions. I realized as we all piled into the car and headed for the restaurant it would be our last meal as a Party of 5.

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.

TIDBIT TUESDAY - BLENDING HERS AND HIS KIDS

Lisa Hartman
Blended Families, Life as a Step-Mom, Tidbit Tuesday

I'm on the road with my two daughters (his and mine) for a few days of shopping until we drop.  Twelve years ago - Little Hart was two and Elle was 5. Neither one was very happy about it.  Nor was Jax very happy about Elle and vice versus.

The first time we decided to get Elle and Jax together for a play date it was a disaster!  Elle asked to used the bathroom and Jax immediately ran into the bathroom, locked the door,refusing to come out! No accidents - there was another bathroom upstairs.  Jax didn't come out of the bathroom until we were safely in the car and on our way home.  

 

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.

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT HER?

Lisa Hartman
Blended Families, Life as a Step-Mom, Marriage , Step-kids, Step-parenting

Jax asked if he could make me lunch. Yes! A welcome surprise.  Once the grilled cheese sandwiches were cooking on the grill, Jax came into the living room - big smile on his face. "Um- other than Sadie biting the noodles - what do think about her?"

The Floaty Thingys!Little background. Sadie(his girlfriend) had come over to swim a few times and had successfully bit off big chunks out of the majority of the noodles(floaty thingys). They're only a $1.69 a piece, but it's disgusting to be using a noodle that someone has been chewing on. Eeeew!

Now if we had been close like Little Hart and I have been for the past 12 years this would seem like just a normal thing to have happen.  Unfortunately we haven't been close even though Jax was only six when we created our blended family.

Jax is Greta's first born and they have always been extremely close.  She hadn't been happy about Raylan and I dating and even less so about us moving in together. Greta had moments of anger/sadness about our relationship that often times were expressed in front of Jax.  

The first week in our new home, Jax came racing down the stairs, lost his footing and slide down the last four steps. Major carpet burn!  I raced over to him "Let me look at it - I'll get you all fixed up!" Jax looked up "My Mom says only her and my Dad can take care of me!" Then he ran off.  Whether Greta actually said that or not was a mute point. Jax felt the pressure to keep me at arms length. I had to accept the reality of our relationship, even though it broke my heart. 

For years we really didn't have a relationship beyond our family unit.  We had our issues - mundane, run of the mill stuff.  Yet they always turned into big deals and were exacerbated by my Hubby coming to the rescue of Jax which only furthered the distance between us.

Six years ago my relationship with Jax came to a crossroads.  Jax was having some issues.  Raylan, Jax and I sat down to have a talk about life.  Raylan asked Jax what was going on with him, he replied "I hate my life and it's all Lisa's fault!" He was blaming me for all the wrongs in his life?  Not totally surprising given that Greta always expressed her anger toward me, rarely Raylan regardless of the problem.

TIDBIT TUESDAY - A PUBLIC MARRIAGE PROPOSAL TO A MOM

Lisa Hartman
Blended Families, Life as a Step-Mom, Marriage , Step-kids, Tidbit Tuesday

Tidbit Tuesday is a forum where I can talk about the things I'm hearing and seeing out in the real world.

Opening night of the Evo Conference there were a number of speakers sharing their personal stories to inspire the audience.  The last speaker was a gentleman I'll call Mike.  Mike started talking about a woman I'll call Kim, initially I  thought she was his wife.  Slides were flashing on the big screen of Kim in her role as a mother, business owner. Mike was talking about how much he respected her and his learning curve in becoming a supportive partner to Kim.  As the speech progressed I gleamed from his phrasing that Mike and Kim were not married.  

Without warning, a slide popped up on the big screen: "Will you marry me?" Simultaneously, Mike said something along the lines what do you when you love a woman this wonderful - "Ask her to marry you!"  Kim was down in the audience, he on stage.  Silence from her!  Mike walked down to Kim's table, knelt down on one knee and asked her to marry him again. Silence from Kim.  

 

STEP-MOM'S KEEP FAMILY FROM RUNNING FOR THE EXIT!

Lisa Hartman
Blended Families, Life as a Step-Mom, Step-kids

Sunday I walked in the door to a clean house, thanks to Elle! Three happy kids and happy Hubby to greet me!  Turns out they all actually missed me and I missed them as well.  Smiles all the way around.  

About one hour into my time away, I really started to miss my family!  It was really a good exercise for all of five of us to realize how much our family is an important part of who have become over the past twelve years.

Video Blogging in a Gondola at Evo Conference

Eventually the conference was in full swing and I was non-stop busy.  I met a ton of great people and made some lasting friendships.  I met one of my Twitter followers, Sandy! She's a Mom and Step-Mom as well. It was a great treat to get to talk to her in person.  

I also, met a ton of other great women living a blended family life or have a friend - a sister living in one or happened to grow up in one sometimes two blended families. Even one Dude! I loved hearing all of their stories about what they loved about their blended families and even their challenges.  

On of the things that struck me, was us as women. Not only are we the Step-mom's/Mom's in our family - often times we are the one person keeping our family running smoothly -  the glue that keeps us together! We are the key to our family humming along or the entire family running for the next available exit!

 

FIND YOUR SMILE MITCH (LISA)

Lisa Hartman
Blended Families, Life as a Step-Mom, Marriage

"Find your smile Lisa", those words from my Hubby as I left for the Evo Conference. For those of you who don't remember - "Find your smile Mitch" is from the movie City Slickers, one of our family favorites. I don't think I was as bad off as Mitch before he left for the Cattle Ranch, but if so it's coming 5 years later. In a few short weeks I'll be 45.
 

Last week I had a minor meltdown and then a major meltdown. First the minor. My kids are out of school for the summer. Like a lot of Mom's I don't feel like I have enough hours in the day to accomplish everything on my plate. Then to have all of my kids home during the day - has made life even more complicated.

On top of that, Jax is leaving in a few short weeks for College and has been full of compliments on how much he will miss my cooking, can I make him this, that or the other. I decided to be flattered and take it as a compliment and have been making him meals at all times of the day and night. Bad habit I know! Don't know if it's MY cooking as much as I do all the work. No matter the reason, I know I will miss these times come Fall - I jumped into becoming a short order cook for the summer.

TIBIT TUESDAY - STEP-MOM HARDEST ROLE OF MY LIFE

Lisa Hartman
Blended Families, Life as a Step-Mom, Step-parenting, Tidbit Tuesday

Today feels like a Monday with the Holiday yesterday.  I'm having a hard time getting started even with my steaming cup of tea.  At least it's Tuesday and I'm posting Tidbit Tuesday on Tuesday so that's a plus this week! Yeah me!

After posting Tidbit Tuesday last week - many of the comments and conversations I had following brought up the question - Is being a Step-Mom the hardest, most challenging role I have had in my life?

My initial response was Y-E-S, hands down it's been the hardest role of my life!

As I was telling my Hubby this very thing - he said even more than being a Mom dealing with your daughter's Step-Mom?  I have had some very serious issues with Malus over the past 17 years.  As I took time to think about my relationships with the Step-Mom(Malus) and the Mom's(Bitty/Greta) I deal with in both roles my reaction was still a big YES! I jotted down the some of the differences. Here they are:

Some of my reasons why being a Mom and dealing with the Step-Mom to my child ranks second to being a Step-Mom:

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