It has been an interesting two years as we have blended our family. There were a lot of things I had never done with my kids, places we hadn’t been, things I had been meaning to do but never done. Enter Nicole and the kids and suddenly things changed.

We began doing things as a big group. It was fun and exciting. She introduced us to new places to go and things to see, she introduced us to new restaurants and her home-cooking is no match for anything I had experienced before. She is MUCH better.

Another first just occurred today. And on Father’s Day no less.

Today I sent my oldest daughter off to her first time at summer sleepover camp. It is only for one week, but I have been so worried about it. She is thirteen so it isn’t like she shouldn’t go. In fact, it is really a shame I haven’t done this before. She has been so excited.

Nicole found the kids a church camp to go to for a week. All five kids will get to go for one week this summer, but the teens left today. Not knowing what to expect I think was the hardest. Also not being the one in charge or in control of all that was going on, was difficult too. Sure, I can happily hand over the check and go on my way, but that’s my daughter you’re putting in camp. Who’s she going to be with? Are there boys? Will they be supervised? Will she eat camp food? Will she be too hot, will she make new friends? There were so many things to think about, and in the end I handed over that check.

And so we took them this morning, and all day long I have been thinking of them. Both of them. Her son, my daughter. Are they okay? Did the bus arrive alright? Are they safe? Have they met anyone yet? Are they fed? Are they sleeping yet or are they lying there awake thinking of home?

I had no idea how hard some first could be.

This was a subject I thought might come up at some point, and I am really glad that Nicole asked for my opinion. Living with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) doesn’t just involve the people who have been diagnosed. It goes beyond that into affecting the other family members as well as the entire family dynamics.

I love this woman, and thank the good Lord for that because sometimes she makes me crazy. And what’s worse is that her son, who is medicated has it far worse than she does.

It was difficult at first, because I had never had a son. I had daughters. No experience with boys, nothing. I was coming in blinded. Add to that the fact that he is one of the most hyperactive people I’ve ever met (which isn’t saying much because I don’t have much experience in ADHD either) and he lives in our home … things were definitely interesting for awhile.

But I think they are better now. We have celebrated two years together as an official blended family, and every single day I remind myself to work with patience, work with fairness and work with humor. These three things get me through the parenting snafu’s and even wifely issues much easier than if I was a total block head and ignored everything around me.

Living with ADHD is so difficult. There are days when it is much more obvious that others. Days I wish they would both just sit down and be quiet. On the other hand, they are both seriously creative people, fun to hang out with and spend time with and they both have the ability to make you smile even when you don’t want to.

The best advice I can give you if you are living with someone with ADHD, is to strive to have the most patience humanly possible. Patience always prevails, so get some and use it.

I thought I was going to lose my dinner last night when Nicole informed me I was going to need to run to the store. I am one of those men who does not mind running to the store to get womanly items, and I’m used to running out occasionally for her. What I wasn’t prepared for, was who they were for.

How could my little girl need them? My little girl with that beautiful blonde hair and those tight little ringlet curls and her pretty fancy dresses. How could she need them yet? Oh yeah. Because she is thirteen.

It was inevitable of course, this thing she is succumbing to. Her body becoming more and more womanly everyday. It is so hard to see her in certain clothing, or listen to her when she talks about certain things. I don’t have my baby anymore. She’s all grown up.

The plus side to this of course, is that she came to Nicole for help. At any point at her concert she could have gone to her mother, and she didn’t. I will never know why, because she is closest to her mother. But she came to Nicole who of course handled it with grace. I knew something was up because my daughter was walking around looking for Nic and kept saying “I need to talk to her.” Well, she did and I just knew.

I guess I have to let her go. I have to stop thinking of her as that little girl with pigtails and curls and see her for who she is. A strong willed, independent, beautiful young lady who is growing up right before my eyes. Who knew it would be so hard?

A couple of days ago Nicole posted a blog titled “How Many Kids Do You Really Have?” She didn’t ask me to post my opinion on what she wrote, but I am. (hey babe you gave me access remember?)

First of all, something I have heard her preach over and over again, is how having a successful blended family takes patience, consistency and time. It’s a lot of work every day to remember that I am not just a normal parent, but I am also a “step parent”. And to make matters worse, my step-kids father is really not in the picture. She rarely hears from him, and so we don’t deal with him. This makes me the primary man in their lives.

This in itself puts a lot of pressure on me as a father. I want to do right by my own kids AND my step kids. I want to make the right decisions, I want to be a good leader and role model, but it is all very hard. And I learn as I go.

I don’t feel as if I am harder on her children over my own. I have reflected on that since she wrote that post. She feels strongly that I am. So I guess I am going to have to evaluate my parental role, figure out what it is she feels I am doing and try to hold my tongue and “choose my battles” (her favorite phrase) so I can eliminate the fact that she feels I am being unfair to anyone.

There is nobody I want to hurt in any of this so its important that we get it fixed.

Oh, and in case you wanted to know. I have five kids.

Nicole asked me to comment about her post regarding my ex wife not answering her cell phone when we call. At first I told her I wasn’t sure I want to, because there is a lot of pent up anger there and I doubt if airing it out on a blog is the right thing to do. So I sat and thought it about it last night and today I am going to say what I think.

My ex wife was the one who left. There is a lot of skeletons in that closet I will leave untouched and won’t say anything about here, but she made her choices, and they were really not very good ones. I am sure she spends a great deal of time regretting her decisions. But that isn’t what I wanted to talk about.

Nic offered up her rant yesterday about how my ex never answers the phone when we call, nor does she ever call back to speak to me. All of our dealings seem to go through Nicole which is silly. I have never been ugly to her and I won’t lie, there are definitely ill feelings. I’m cordial, I talk nicely about her in front of the kids, everything I should do to “foster a happy relationship between both parents”.

So why does she feel the need to run everything through Nicole? I will call her, leave a message telling her what I would like to know and she will either deliberately call back when she knows I am not here or she will call directly on Nicole’s cell phone rather than mine or the home phone.

Her other favorite method of communication seems to be email, which I admit I am not good about checking. I have other things I am doing and checking for emails is not one of them. I don’t email with too many people and she knows this. So why does she do this?

I have thought about confronting her a few times, but I am thinking that isn’t going to solve anything. So anyone have any answers as to why they think she might be doing that? Guilt maybe?

After the post yesterday, Nicole came to me and asked if I understood the different between parenting a step family and parenting my own children prior to the divorce. I looked at her as if she was nuts, because of course I know the difference. Shoot. Blended families are hard and you not only have to get to know one new person, you have to get to know at least two or more because usually the are bringing kids which in her case was two. Three new people I had to get to know, I had to figure out what foods they like, and what movies they like, and what games they like to play.

I had to figure out if I was supposed to be a dad to them right away or if I was supposed to be a friend first. Was I supposed to leave everything up to her regarding her children? I had no idea what I was doing. So we learned together.

I don’t even want to touch the myths about step-families or blended families because they are nothing more than excuses spouted off by people trying to figure out what is going wrong in their own parenting. But I will totally touch the Truths. Here is what I have to say.

Blending a family takes a lot of work and is an ongoing process. It will not happen overnight. Well, I am glad she said it, because she always makes it look so easy and meanwhile I’m over here wondering what I’m doing wrong since I feel so stressed all the time. I know its probably because I am not around as much as I’d like to be, but I try very hard to make things work when I am.

Even the blended family that seems to blend rather well, will have problems and conflicts that will arise from time to time. Oh, so that’s why over a year later we are still having issues that pop up daily and I wonder how we didn’t see that coming. You would think Nic had done this before, she’s a pro. Nic, you haven’t done this before right?

Patience, love and persistance are the three most important resources to have when trying to blend your step family. I am exuding the patience. In fact, being a step parent has made me much more patient than I ever was before. I’m full of love and her children are easy to love, and I already love the stuffing out of mine. And persistance is something that I am needing to work on. I tend to give up easily, get annoyed or frustrated fast. Persistance to keep being patient. That is what I am working on.

A united front between parents, seems to be the most successful way to blend a family.
Yeah, I know I relatively suck at this. I am working on that. It isn’t that we are not united, I agree with most of what she does as a parent, but sometimes I have my own ideas and I guess I don’t know when is a good time to say them. This is when that gets me in trouble. Overall we are definitely united. Aren’t we Nic?

Each family member matters in a blended or step family.
I wanted to just simply say “Duh”, but that doesn’t sum up how I feel. Every member in a household matters, whether they are biologically yours or not. It does make me sad to realize that sometimes a child feels neglected or like we don’t listen to them or value them, so I work extra hard to be sure I am being as fair as I can in every instance. I’m human, I make mistakes, I learn, I move on and I try again.

There are even more truths too. And I can give you hundreds, but many of them will depend on your own family and what is going on in your dynamics.
She couldn’t have said this better. I believe that almost all parenting is situational since no two parents are alike and neither are any two kids. So adjusting, modifying, trial and error. Yeah they are all your friends.

Well, I am glad she asked me to speak, because why should she get all the credit?

I’m a cool dad. I know I am. Shouldn’t I have told Nicole to quit with the water fight in the kitchen, and shouldn’t we have been setting a better example for our children? Probably we should have. But the point is, we didn’t and we had fun and the kids loved it.

I hear how cool I am from time to time. It always makes me feel good when one of my daughter’s says somethign like that. Its usually the middle child, Melissa. I know Nic talks about her a lot. She has an amazing ability to make people feel very good about what they are doing, and when she says I’m cool I think I must be doing something right.

We as a family try to go out of our way to have fun as much as possible. Even when the money is tight and I’m busy worrying about how I’m going to pay off a bill, I still try to take them out and do things with them. In fact, did you know that if you just take your kid to a park and spend time talking to them and playing with them and just being there that those are the times they remember most?

One of our kids talks about the time we spontaneously went to the park at 8:30pm at night. It was almost dark and we knew that it would be pretty dark when we got there. I took them anyway and we had a a lot of fun. It was something different, something we don’t normally do and they loved it.

Being a dad is the coolest thing ever!

Yesterday Nicole blogged about our daughter’s award ceremony. And if Nic thinks she’s a bad mom for the whole thing, I’m even worse. I probably could have taken the time off. I am now thinking I know I should have.

When Ness brought the sheet home from school it just said “Your daughter is winning an award.” Well, that helps a lot. What award? I was doing the math and calculating the possibility that she had not missed any school. I would have been pretty ticked if I had taken off work and she won an award for perfect attendance. While I am sure some parents think that is all great and dandy, I would not have been happy missing a night of work for that.

Except now I know I should have taken off. I know Nicole tried to take pictures, and I know they didn’t come out at all. I should have been there so that wasn’t a problem.

Being a parent comes with so many sacrafices and hard decisions on your part. Sometimes we make the right ones, and sometimes we learn from our mistakes. You can bet the next time something comes home from school that says “Your daughter is winning an award.” not only will I take the night off, but I’ll probably bring her flowers or something else.

Signing off,
Runner Up in the bad dad category