I laugh now, because I am always one to say how incredible our blended family dynamics are. You rarely can tell that these kids haven’t always been together. While of course there are fights, as any siblings have, overall they just have a connection and its good.

Except today, I saw what could really happen and I am terribly disappointed in ‘dad’ for not stepping in even further than he did.

Background: We went to the lake today. It’s only the second time we’ve been this summer, even though we were there practically all summer long last year. The two youngest are really not ’strong’ swimmers, but they can swim. So they love to go out to the dock which stands in about 14′ of water (maybe more). I allow them to go out there so they can jump off, but they HAVE to take some type of flotation device. From noodles to rafts, it’s all made its way to the center of the lake’s swimming area.

Today the two youngest girls (9 and 10) and the middle girl (11) went out to the dock and had been jumping off, swimming back to shallower water, swimming back and jumping off for about a half hour or so - the same stuff they did all summer long last year. They were obviously having great fun. Well, apparently one of the times that my daughter (the older of the two younger ones, but the SMALLER of the two younger ones - she might be 10 but she looks about 6 in size) jumped off, the raft was out a bit further than she had anticipated. Thankfully the middle child was right there to help her and made an attempt to get her. All was fine because they were together, and from the looks of things - there was no intervention needed.

A huge gust of wind came and carried the raft not only quite a bit away from them, but completely on the outside of the swimming area. The youngest one still had her raft, so they all tried to pile on it, while she started telling them to get off. Please remember that they are all in 14′ + of water. (oh and yes there is a lifeguard on duty) She finally pushes my daughter OFF of her raft (yes she had seen the other raft take off and was actually going after it). So my daughter is essentially doggy paddling as fast as she can back to shore (which is not very fast). The middle child decides to try to catch up to the drifting raft, and forgets that my daughter has probably about 25 yards of water to swim through. (yes I was watching all of this, waiting to see if I needed to rescue her). Twice my daughter asked the youngest one if she could get on the raft, and twice she was told no.

The oldest daughter (13 almost 14) was sitting with us up on the beach and her dad tells her “go help Brie, please”. She looks out at the water, and just stays planted right there. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t do a thing. Just sits and stares. He doesn’t say a damn word.

Brie did make it back to shore, completely out of breath and totally in tears without an ounce of help from any of the three girls. A really nice man dove out into the “non-swimming” area and retrieved the run-away raft and brought it back to her and all was well again. I was so mad, so angry I was actually shaking. If that had been one of his kids (he can’t even friggen’ swim!) he would have been absolutely beyond anger if my kids had done what his kids did. The only one who had an ounce of decency to her was the middle daughter. She really did try to help, except she got caught up worrying about the raft and forgot about the child trying to swim back to shore.

I retrieved my son (13, 14 next month) from the other end of the beach and asked him if he would please come swim with her after briefly explaining what had happened. Thankfully, he can be a real brat to his sister, but when push comes to shove, he has a compassion for her that I’m happy to see between siblings. He went and spent over an hour playing with her, letting her jump off his shoulders, sit on his shoulders, and whatever else.

The problem of course, is that it is NOW the next day, and I am still quite angry about the whole thing. Honestly, the middle child feels like crap, because she knew I was mad and she’s that perfect angel that doesn’t want anyone disappointed or mad at her. More than likely she had already realized the error of her ways. BUT - the oldest made no movement to go help - and was never talked to. And the youngest? Oh, what I could say about her. If she had been one of mine - her butt would have been out of the lake and sitting in time out while she watched all the others play. But nope. Not one word was said to her by anyone but me (when I went and met my daughter at the lake edge as she came out) and all I said was “you don’t need to follow her. You want to push a child off a raft or not allow someone to share it? There is no need for you to help now.” (it was in relation to the fact that she was getting out of the water to go stand and wait with my daughter as the guy brought her prized run-away raft back.

The moral to the story? It would have been better for all parties involved to have talked this over. If it had been, even I would have felt better now. I really do get tired of parenting alone.

Yes, you read that right. Doesn’t it make your stomach churn?

We are in a year-round school district, and today is the first day of school. It was so hard watching my two youngest still left in elementary school climb aboard that bus and get swallowed up for another year. Summer isn’t over, why are we back in school?

This year I have a 4th grader and a 5th grader. The 5th grade thing is what is the hardest. That’s my baby. My youngest child. I’m not prepared for that tiny little thing to be in 5th grade, and with the knowledge that next year she enters middle school. Which will leave only his youngest at the elementary school by herself. I wonder how that will go.

I hope this school year goes well, and I guess we will just have to make the best of the weekends. Of course, the end of September they will wind up getting out of school for three weeks while the rest of the world is still studying hard. I used to hate cycle breaks, now its the only thing that gets me through the first days of school in the dead of summer.

Tonight was Meet the Teacher night at the elementary school. We only have two left there, and it made it a bit easier to fit all the activities in. Normally we were running all over the place. This was a bit less work.

The coolest part for my daughter Brie, is that she has a teacher we already know. Melissa had him last year and we loved him.

After we found out Brie would have him, we went and found him on Field day last year and snapped a photo:

We did have to go meet Jesse’s teacher. She’s very young (26), beautiful and totally a sweetheart. Brie had her last year at the end of the year for Math, and she liked her.

Both kids are looking forward to a great year and actually seemed excited to be back in the school building again. I cannot believe we are already doing this again. When do you guys all go back? Do you have a Meet the Teacher night at your school?

This weekend was our first camping trip without dad with us. He took some overtime shifts at work, so he was working all weekend. We planned to go down with two sets of friends of ours, but that took a twist too. My best friends are two women who are sister-in-laws (Portia and Amy). Portia is married to Amy’s brother Eric, and they have one child Alexis who is actually Eric’s 16 year old step-daughter. Amy is married to Aaron and Aaron wound up having a band gig last night, so he couldn’t go with us. Amy decided to go with us anyway. Portia hates camping so she didn’t want to go either. So Eric and Alexis came with us. It was rather funny actually, but at least Aaron, Portia and Mike decided to get together and have dinner Friday night and then they watched Vantage Point together.

Meanwhile we were all having the time of our lives camping without our closest friends which actually was fun anyway, but we kept talking about them not being there. LOL Saturday Amy and Eric and Alexis went on a canoe float trip. I didn’t feel up to taking five kids out in canoe’s OR a raft BY MYSELF so we opted to stay back at the site and do “kid-like” stuff. We swam in the river, panned for gems, checked out a cave and eventually returned back to camp to find the remnants of a horrible rain storm. Not cool. For a brief moment I actually considered packing up and leaving when the other three returned to camp. Everything was so wet. Thankfully I had scotch-guarded the tent TWICE before we came, so everything in the tent was perfectly okay. I’m glad we stayed though, because we wound up playing games all night (the favorite was WHOONU which is from the Cranium games and is SO fun for kids and adults).

This morning we woke up to sunshine and a gorgeous day. We packed the rest of the stuff up, and then went down to the river for some pictures, skipping rocks, playing a few games and just hanging out. Oddly I was ready to leave when it was time, I couldn’t wait to get back home and see Mike before he left for work.

It was a great weekend, but next time I want him to come with.

My house has once again been invaded by the two teens that were away at camp. It was so unbelievably quiet all week. I thought for sure with the two oldest gone it would be loud because the little ones would be active, but nope. Nobody seemed to know what to do with each other.

Lots of trips to the pool, games of WII at our friend’s house and bike rides later, I think that the kids are all happy to be together again.

Thankfully camp was loads of fun for everyone, and the other three go the last week of July. Apparently they eat well, have great fun and just get a vacation away from home with memories that last a lifetime. Who can beat that over your summer vacation?

Thirteen Ways To Remind Your Kids You Love Them.

1. Give compliments often. Focus on the positive and not the negative so much. Be sure your kids know you are proud of them often.

2. Pull out the scrapbooks, photo albums and pictures. Sit with your children and look through them. If you want a sweet story, check out this one. A Touching Moment With Scrapbook in Hand.

3. Allow your children more freedom in making their own choices. For younger children, you might offer them a few choices and let them select one. Older children you might allow them to make a choice and see where it takes them. It teaches your children to make good choices, it allows for them to feel just slightly indpendent and in control of their lives, and makes them realize that you respect them.

4. Eat dinner together as a family as often as you can. Take turn sharing stories about the good things and funny things that happened that day. Try to avoid the negative turn of events that might have occured, focus on happy times.

5. Send in a little notes and special treats in their lunches to school. Sometimes I hide little notes in their books and they find them a day or two later. They are always so excited to come home and tell me they found it (even our 13 year old girl).

6. Wear their creations. Display their creations. Hang good tests and homework assignments on the fridge. Wear that tacky, multi colored mismatched bracelet that they made you. Display their art creations where everyone can see. We choose one special art piece at the end of the year and have it framed. It goes on the wall. Yes, our wall is filled with oddly colored, brightly colored pictures, some of which are totally indistinguishable (I have no idea what that purple blob is with yellow and red dots and stripes, but someone made it and it was special to them).

7. Start fresh each day. Don’t reflect on past transgressions. Allow your children to feel like each day is a new day.

8. Hug them whenever you can. Kiss them whenever you can. The old saying “children grow up so fast”, is truer than you might think right now. Teach them affection while reminding them how much you love them.

9. Attend special events at school whenever possible. We have trouble because with five kids its so difficult to attend everything, but we ALWAYS go to anything that is awarding them something, anything that they have worked really hard at (art fair, band concerts, music concerts), and with the holiday parties and other school wide events, we go but we split up our time between classrooms.

10. Don’t point out everytime your child makes a mistake. If they are doing something wrong, try saying “Why don’t you try it this way and see if that helps.” Allow them to decide whether or not they want to try it that way (unless they are in danger of hurting themselves). Showing them new ways to do things is our job as a parent, but allowing them the freedom to decide how they want to do it is also important.

11. Play with your children. Get down on their level and enjoy them. Read to them. Play Barbies or Power Rangers with them. Play a board game. Do a craft with them. Spend time with them. Time is a valuable way that your children will learn that they are loved. They will not remember all the material items you buy, but they will definitely remember the times that you played with them.

12. Bend the rules once in awhile. Surprise them with an elaborate breakfast for dinner, or take them to the park at 7:30pm to play for an hour before bed, allow them to dance and play in the rain, allow them to get muddy once in awhile. Change your rules from time to time to allow it. Be sure and explain to them that it is a special time and that just this once you will bend the rules. This way they don’t expect it.

13. Tell your kids “I love you” at least once a day. Communication is key and always remember that actions do speak louder than words.

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I wasn’t going to do another post on this subject, because I seriously thought that it might be too much dealing with one particular thing or subject.

Instead what I realized by the original post, and the comments and emails I have been getting ever since, is that it is a problem that a lot of families face, and it might be helpful to delve into it a bit more.

First, you need to review your situation. You need to look at it from all angles, and be sure that there really is a problem. What I mean is, are you sure that there are children who aren’t getting as much as others? Are you looking at all sides of this? For instance, it might seem as if some of the kids are getting all these gifts from extended family members, but don’t the other kids have extended family members that also might spoil the children?

Are there times when certain children are at home with you, while others are away, and that might be spoiled a little in other ways?

For instance, I tend to do more with my children when the step-kids are visiting their mom every other weekend. We go out for ice cream, sometimes to dinner, we might take in a movie or visit the zoo or something else. While it might not see like a gift, it is special time with my children and the other kids are not involved at that point because they are off with their own mother.

Or does it seem like maybe you cannot do these things with your children, and maybe it is when the step-kids are away - they are the ones being spoiled. Sometimes this cannot be controlled and building a healthy relationship with your own children should be foremost in your mind.

You might be surprised to learn that even just sitting down and reading or doing crafts with your kids will make them happier than getting gifts.
Take a walk, play a game, watch a movie snuggled together (yes even with older kids), etc. You need to teach your children that gifts are not everything, the gift of time and love is far more important than any old monetary thing. Now, with all of that said, it is still difficult for younger children to appreciate that. So I will delve further into that in a future article.

Have a happy day!

I am suddenly re-addicted to photo hunters and I am making a point to do it on all of my blogs. Simply because - it’s fun. And because each of my blogs has a theme which makes it easy to change the photographs to reflect my interests.

One of my favorite words in the world is FREE. Whether in means to get something for free (even though I will be the first to tell you that nothing in life is ever free), or just the simple word which means freedom. I am free. I am free to do what I want, I am free to make my own decisions, etc. I wanted to find a photograph that encompassed the word free. It was harder than I thought. (plus I was determined to find three - one for each blog.

Have you ever jumped on a swing before as an adult. It is so freeing. It feels great. Kids love swings because they feel invincible, free….. I love this pic of my youngest step daughter at the park one evening.

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