Memory Lane

Late last night, I finished writing an essay for an anthology on motherhood--in my case, stepmotherhood. The acquaintance who is putting together the anthology didn't have any stepmothers representing in her first volume of mothering essays and was glad to include my voice in volume two.

Whilst writing said essay, I did a lot of archival research--looking at blog posts and emails about my travails and triumphs as a stepmom. The triumphs are still vastly outnumbered by the travails, but looking back at how things were when I first met Mike's kids and the speed bumps during their initial visits made me realize how far we've come.

Brad and Jessica hug me hello and goodbye voluntarily and seem interested in interacting with me--even when Mike isn't around. Nicole is a bit warmer these days. Jackie remains the persistent outlier and sometimes seems deliberate in trying to avoid interacting with me. Too bad; since she changed her major to English, we could have a lot to talk about.

There are still annoyances--like Nicole taking our IKEA catalog and borrowing shampoo that she didn't give back. (The latter sounds really petty I'm sure, but I was actually more annoyed that she hadn't asked for toiletries at our house where I could have readily, easily, and happily supplied her needs).

We still overbuy junk food, eat out more often, and spend way more money than planned when the kids are visiting. However, I've lowered my insane June Cleaver-like pre-visit cleaning standards; I've now relaxed to the point that my only mandatory task is making sure the beds all have clean sheets.

Jackie and Jessica visited right before the Salt Lake Symposium, so I didn't have it in me to stress about their visit. I barely saw them at all that week. Brad and Nicole accompanied us to Yellowstone and drove back to Missouri in the minivan so Jessica could use it as her high school car.

While we still don't have the warm, close relationships I first envisioned for our blended family, things have gotten better over the past three years.

Oh, and I used to write some really funny shit on this blog. Why did I ever stop?