2 years later

so I just posted what I had previously it seems left in my draft folder.

Some things are, as they will be 2 years later, a little different

I’m having a very sad stepmom day as a lot of us do, and I looked up ‘stepmother struggles’ on the internet because like, that’s where we look for things we have right? 

I mean, you should see my black tank top search variations. 

Anyway... 

So there’s this ‘Stepmother Bill Of Rights’ thing I see now and again when looking these things up, that makes me crazy because it’s all stuff that should be so obvious, but also stuff that’s such a pipe dream. The stepmother does literally all the same-if not more- of the parenting work that her partner does, often (I know in my case, anyway, very profoundly) loves their stepchildren as deeply as their birth children, but has no legal rights to the schedule, other adults making decisions for her time, and her giving twice as much time to parenting as she had to for only her own children. IT IS THE VERY DEFINITION OF BEING A STEPMOTHER. All of the responsibilities of a mother to children of which you are absolutely not the mother of no matter how much you feel like one. You aren’t their parent even when you do all that a parent would, often alongside raising your own child. So the one right that makes me craziest about that cute little stepmom bill of rights is ‘I will not be treated or thought of as an outsider within my own family or my own home’...

Wait-really? Did you not get the memo from the universe? You know, the one you should have read stating  THATS THE FUCKING JOB, PEOPLE! Did you not live in the same world we all did? Did you all not know what Wife-Life was to begin with, more or less second wife life with someone else’s humans as your own responsibilities and hearts? Were they not part of what You fell in love with, jerks? When you said I do, you said ‘I do agree to be a stepmother’. Sure a lot of it is degrading, heartbreaking, lack of appreciation belittling to how much work it is- but I don’t know how you found your partner and beautiful stepchildren living in a cave hidden from society, womanhood, stereotypes, and like, LIFE for so long. We don’t get a bill of rights. We don’t get ANY parental rights. No matter how much we sacrifice, how deeply we love, how hard we parent, we are NOT legally their parents.

We get amazing, wonderful stepchildren to love. It is not the world, our partner, or their real parents job to love that about us. Or even respect that about us. Or even treat us with any respect at all (because again ladies-you didn’t see this coming? Tv? Books? All the second wives you’ve ever met?) No one ever ever told us that was part of the deal. 

We are stepmothers. That was the deal. 

So hey, thanks Internet. Sometimes from annoying Internet movement rage comes perspective. 

Now since I went to my room for an hour, I’m going to go have the kids get off the screens my husband left them on all that time, or at least have them turn the volume down from window shaking to only minor ear damage  level. Not because they’re my kids and I have a right and a whole fucking bill of them implied by a mommy blog or anything... 

But because I’m their stepmom, and it’s my job. That I do, because I love them.

And Then There Were Four

As recently stated, while talking about a completely different thing, I now have 2000 stepchildren and a husband.

In reality, I have a middle aged but still dashing prince charming of about a foot taller than me, we wear the same jean size, and he brought me soup the first time I was sick, always remembers to bring me flowers, and my favorite, brought me the most amazing, insane, difficult and hilarious 3 step children. They're amazing new siblings to my sweet tiny lady, and an exhausting delight in my life. I don't just love them like my own child... I love them like my step children. It isn't the same... but it isn't less by any stretch in the world.  And so, an introduction:

1) The Little One:

The little one is in her panties. Always. She is nowhere near me but I know that she is in her panties because it is her only state of existence at nearly 6 years of age. It's an indiscriminent state of nude being, she answers the door that way, wanders out on the porch that way, sighs in public and tells me she wishes she could be that way all the time and didn't have to wear (whatever she is wearing) because "I just don't care for clothes".

The little one may in fact be an impish pixie full of some otherworldly magic, trapped in the limiting human form due to some weird curse by like, whatever curses impish pixies. But, she also may be criminally deranged and just waiting to kill us all in our sleep giggling sweetly all the while.

Time will tell.

Some of my favorite quotes by The Little One over the past few months have been....

~ "I love standing here... I just kind of really want to pee in this vent" Oh so calmly, this statement. Moments before I, not so calmly, picked her up off of the vent and distracted her for the rest of the day.
~"I kind of wish I could marry you, Amanda." ('Awww', says our visiting friends) "And then, I could murder you and have another stepmother. (Strangely, visiting friends have no comment for that second bit)
~ " If a robber came in this house, I would kick him in the nuts."

2)Boy-Child:

Boy-Child is something especially unique to me. He does not care about glitter. He is not and never has been into My Little Pony. Or any pony oriented thing except that like ‘Hey Amanda, my friend told me there was a movie where a guy had a dead horses head cut off in his bed. When can I watch that movie?’.

But He is not without his fathers tenderness despite being clearly all schoolyard. He sings like an angel. He will not watch some movies with me because there may be an animal that dies, and that may be sad. Unless, apparently, that animal is a decapitated horse, of course.

Boy-child is often busy. He has to guard the house with a swat vest and a plastic sword and a storm trooper mask at least a few hours a week, he has box forts that clearly aren’t going to build themselves, and he is onto legos the way I am into makeup... and luckily for my new husband, children.

Much like his father, also, boy-child always gives me a hug and a kiss good night. He is absolutely the second male love of my life, and I admit, he’s really softening me up to how fucking awesome legos are.

3) The pre-Tween:

It is what it is.

She really loves me a lot, except when she hates my guts, so like... obviously she’s a 10 year old girl. What is more, she is a schoolmate and now best friend of my own daughter. Which was at first amaze balls and she could not believe her incredible luck. She was going to be at a sleepover that NEVER ENDS!

But now it is dawning on her... she is at a sleepover.

That NEVER.
Fucking.
Ends.

But, at the end of the day, she is my strong stepchild. Sometimes she has a mean steak I don’t know what to do about, that her father insists isn’t a problem. And sometimes she taunts her new stepsister until she cries. At first I was terrified, worried, and then it dawned on me that as the oldest in a divorce, she had been in charge of care taking for children who were not her own, but had no real rights with them... yeah.

I can get that.

And luckily I am not a 10 year d who hates loving a lady who loves my father, who has too much freedom after a brief wave of too much responsibility. I am a grown woman who can sit with her on the back porch and let her sneak soda and tell me that sometimes she’s just so mad and doesn’t know why, and I can TELL HER...”yeah. I can get that’.

And she was the first to say ‘you’re not my mother’... and will probably be the first to call me a bitch.... and she will probably be the one with the best blog, who I will enjoy long smart talks with the most. She is just a strong woman in a powerless pre-tweens life.

For now.

And of course...

4) My daughter.

She has prepared me for some of this, and she has prepared me for none of this. She is the little girl who once wrote Hitler a letter saying she believed he could be a better person if he just tried. And now, she is a big sister. It is all she’s ever wanted to be she says... except on the days she says she misses when it was just us in our little house and we could eat dinner on the floor and take silent walks and just share my bed.

But she misses her new siblings the few days they are at their mothers house. She knows that they all share one room there, and that there are babysitters very often, while I only get one every couple of months. And seeing these other children with this other lifestyle, she’s able to make connections she never could before about things like nature and nurture, about how her more outgoing housemates have a whole different set of circumstances than she, an introvert, instead of just assuming most people are better at being social. She’s recognizing that I patented for her needs above all else, and for the first time ever really realizing that her way is not bad, it is just hers.

And there is promise of another child, though as older people there will be some...um... logistical issues to shall we say, put together. But I cannot wait to see what these four will help Mark and I create as our one day 5th human. And until then... now there are 4. And I cannot wait to see what those four will create out of me.