Writing has been tough on me the last week or so. I've been so busy that when I do have time to sit down and write I can only make it for about 15 minutes before I can't keep my eyes open. So, while it may appear that I have let the challenge defeat me, believe me I'm writing every day like I planned. It's just the finished products aren't coming together as fast as I had hoped they would. It doesn't look like things are going to slow down for me any time soon. It's going to be a busy month for the Andrews family. We are pretty much booked every weekend from now until July. We have Mother's Day, the neighborhood garage sale (kill me now), our anniversary, my step-daughter's graduation with a big party at our house to follow, my brother coming to visit, my birthday, and then we'll finish off with a trip to Idaho for my little sister's wedding. I'm exhausted and broke just thinking about it.


Andrews summer madness started this past week with my boy's final band concert of the year. He kicked the whole show off with an awesome trumpet solo and did an outstanding job. Then Saturday night was the kid’s prom. He looked so handsome, and our girl looked breathtakingly gorgeous. She left the house to go get her hair and makeup done looking 18 and came back looking 25.  Selfishly, I was kind of glad that their Mom couldn't make it here to see them off to the prom. It was nice to have that moment to myself. However, there was also a part of me that felt bad for her imagining how it must hurt to have another woman sending you pictures of your kids on prom night. It’s got me thinking a lot about the differences between biological parenting, step-parenting, and the good and bad that comes with both.

I recently went through a couple of months where I was extremely emotional and resentful about the whole situation. I was fully aware from the start that marrying a man with kids is a package deal, and it was something I was truly excited about. When we got married we didn’t have any idea that they would end up living with us less than a year later. We had planned to travel and enjoy our time together in true newlywed fashion, but that’s not the way things went. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not even suggesting that I wouldn’t have married him if I had known they would end up living with us full time. I’m certainly not saying that I wish it hadn’t have happened this way either. When we found out they were coming we were both over the moon about it, and I still wouldn’t change it if I could. I will say that it’s harder than I expected it to be, but it’s not the kids that made it a hard adjustment. I was having a really hard time coping with feeling like another woman had more say about what goes on in my home than I do. In some ways, I recognize that wasn’t entirely accurate, but when you feel like things should be a certain way and someone who isn't even in your household has the power to weigh in and override you it can be very frustrating. I definitely went through a period of feeling like their mother took a look at our situation and decided we had the better gig so she shipped the kids off to us and let me do her job so she could have all the fun. I felt like I was just there to cook dinners, drive people where they needed to go, and just generally do all the stuff she didn't feel like doing. It was so bad for a while that I started spending a lot of time in my room because I didn’t want to act some type of way toward the kids for things that weren’t their fault. At the time, I was aware that I was in my feelings and those feelings weren’t entirely accurate, but sometimes you can’t help what you feel even if you know you shouldn’t.