blended family — Blog 1

Excuse the expression Australia, but I think we can all agree 2020 was a dumpster fire, and before we get too deep into 2021, I want to take a little look back. Some of the evidence includes Hong Kong protests, the bush fires in Australia that killed approximately 500 million animals. The UK formally withdrawing from the European Union, The World Health Organization informing us all of Covid-19. Just wait it gets better. The DOW plummeting, and Italy being the first to enforce its entire country to quarantine. The world was just starting to learn we were dealing with a pandemic. Oil prices dropped to a record low, a flash flood took lives in Beledweyne, Jowhar, and Somalia. Palestine announces the termination of all agreements with Israel and the United States. Black Lives Matter protests broke out across the US and the world. Russia declared a state of emergency over a 20,000-ton oil leak. There was the 7.5 scale earthquake in Mexico. The worldwide death toll due to COVID-19 exceeded 700,000. We postponed the Summer Olympics. Multiple planes and at least one helicopter crashed taking the lives of many. The US impeached President Donald Trump twice (not mad at this fact). Covid-19 numbers reached 47 million confirmed cases worldwide as of November 3rd. I am going to pause there and not list anymore news headlines from the past year because just writing it all down is bringing up feelings of anxiety.

I started 2020 hopeful and excited. You see, on New Years Eve 2019 my man surprised me on our porch with a bouquet of flowers, a stunning ring and a question. I of course said “YES” and we spent the rest of the night celebrating and planning with our kids. I went to bed thinking 2020 was going to be the best year. I was headed into a year of promise and not a year of death and illness. WRONG. But, like the rest of the world, my little house has been doing everything we could to survive.

Family life during a worldwide pandemic is beyond challenging for everyone’s home, and I know that parents everywhere are doing all they can to protect their babies, their jobs and their sanity during these times. I have to take a second and count my blessings here. My kids have maintained their health other than a small bone break due to a scooter and a bee. And my fiancé and our employment were never in jeopardy, however feeling like I was going crazy became familiar. It was all too real when The World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, Canada started calling citizens home and talks about boarder closures and lockdown began.

With talks of lockdown, I had the pressing desire to prepare for anything. I don’t mean running out like half the population and filling my garage with toilet paper and hand sanitizer, but instead reaching out to the coparents and devising a plan to keep our children safe without restricting their access to one parent or the other, or pulling them away from their new siblings. But coparents don’t always see eye to eye. So, while one set of parents was agreeing to limit exposure and risk, another set of parents was booking a medium length road trip to the mountains. I wish I could say we all parked our conflicts and focused on the kids by putting our brains together. But stress tends to bring out the best and the worst in people. This sets the stage for you on how blended families might have experienced things during this time. Not long after, I found myself dealing with school closures and home schooling four kids every other week. Trying to reduce their exposure to conflict as best I could, shuttling all four between households to minimize risk and worrying about my first responder spouse.

I imagine most household’s daily life resembled chasing kids around with a thermometer and bars of soap. My mommy utility belt contained Clorox wipes, hand sanitizer and my cell phone so as not to miss a public service announcement or text from another parent. I found myself on a daily basis trying to balance and filter the information for the kids so they didn’t feel the stress that I was feeling. This was the most challenging aspect of my life. And “Mommy Fatigue” is a real thing. Kids at times have super human hearing. They seem to be able to hide in plain sight like little flies on the wall. Ultimately, they all have X-Men abilities, their greatest super power is they can feel your emotions and absorb your energy even when you think you are pulling off an academy award-worthy performance.

Daily I would quietly give myself a pep talk before leaving my room. “Ok Stacey, Head up, Chest out, smile. You got this, throw some water on your face, get yourself a gallon of coffee and go to work.” What did work look like for this Mom/Stepmom during lockdown with the world holding its breath? Well, it consisted of the following:

Make breakfast and then clean the kitchen.

Receive lesson plans for preschool, kindergarten, grade 4 and grade 6 every week, often including a list of supplies that could be obtained from your local craft store or Home Depot (I wish I was kidding).

Do a load of laundry.

Shower? Nope, come out of the laundry room and find the living room has been tossed due to morning snuggles with the dogs.

Clean the Livingroom.

Make lunch, no one wants to eat the same things so I make four different meals.

Clean the kitchen.

Now can I shower? Nope, walk upstairs to discover the bathroom counter has tooth paste all over it, there are wet towels from last nights baths on the floor, and someone has taken a phantom poop and not flushed.

Hunt down the Phantom Pooper as they most likely have not washed their hands.

Clean the bathroom and realize I needed to get the dogs walked or they might chew on furniture…or kids.

Give up on the shower.

Run down ask the oldest to stay up stairs while I walk dogs/coffee (small blessing). Return to find two out of four kids are fighting and one is crying in their room.

Manage the conflict, and provide love and support to both and possibly discipline if needed.

Start dinner. Dad/Stepdad would be home soon. Get the crazy idea I wanted to workout when he arrives.

Set the table and start serving dinner and chase the youngest to come to the table.

Realize I had no energy to workout that I might be sleep walking as it is.

Partner is home, eat.

Clean kitchen in silence, the kids are excited to see Dad and needed his time.

Start bedtime for the two youngest, manage the tantrum because they wanted to stay up.

Read stories.

Start bedtime for the 9-year-old and watch him pull Dad into cuddles and conversation to run the clock.

Pour myself some wine.

Finally, bedtime for the 11-year-old who I find curled up with the dogs being cute and I don’t want to interrupt it but it is 9pm and I just wanted some adult conversation.

9:30 I find myself too tired for adult conversation but listen to the coparent update and share any communication I might have had with mine.

Finally shower and then bed cause it started all over again the very next day.

If you live in Alberta, then you may have had a similar reoccurring chain of events as of march 2020. I felt like I was Bill Murray in “Ground Hogs Day”. By July I stopped taking in any headline news. I found it all just too depressing and infuriating, which taxed my energy. Instead, I focussed on my job as CEO of the household. Managing the kids’ schooling, the family budget and procuring the resources, add the fact that I was the person doing the dishes most often, and all the spinning plates were mine to keep up in the air. With so much on the line, it became very clear to me that this was a time to really model our blended family values. The most important being family.

Family is a complicated concept to some people. To some it means those that live in the home with them. Or are of blood relation. But to us, it includes all the people who love and support us and our kids and those whom we and our kids love and support in return. To be clear, I personally do not feel the same love or support for all the same people, but family is not something I get to define alone. So, mission #1 for our blended family was to help the kids take note of all the people they love and who love them. Help them learn to show love and be loved because they were going to be very affected by the absence of the extra luxuries and distractions such as sports, dance, playdates and vacations. We decided to sit down at the table for all family meals. We planned special events with the kids and for the kids. Made sure they reached out and were aware that grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends missed them too and were thinking of them. We snuggled in for massive family movie nights, played games, baked, did puzzles, worked on the house, and went on long dog walks. All activities focused on spending the time on and with each other. The lesson being when things are hard, when the world is scary and uncertain, find family. Come home. Love and support are found there and your love and support are needed there. We were all challenged by how life changed and I watched our kids come together even more, truly cementing bonds as siblings. The idea was not to allow ourselves to look at these times through a lens of negativity. “There is good here” as my now husband likes to say. We are some of the fortunate few. Our pantry is full, our home is warm, we have clothing on our backs, toys to play with, and most of all, each other.

Now this tired overworked domestic CEO is not saying I never complained. I am fully aware I complained. This past year was hard work. Ryan and I personally were tested and triggered more than we expected. That is saying a lot, because there was one year here where we had no plumbing, the nearest bathroom was located at the gas station down the road, and Ryan and I both said our final good byes to some of the most influential people in our lives. In working through it all, I often reached out to my trusted and true. Sometimes to swap stories and commiserate, sometimes to have a friendly glass of cold water splashed in my face to wake me up. That is what real friends are for after all. This past year could have broken us, but it opened our eyes us the weaknesses we need to pay attention to, but also revealed the people we could truly rely on and trust.

This is the conclusion from under my rock here. 2020 was historically horrific globally and forced me to slow down. To take note of what I have and how grateful I should be for it. Many wonderful things happened that otherwise would not have for our little family. I personally got to spend more time with my kids. To learn how they learn best, and I got to watch them practice some creative problem solving and discover joy in the simple things. Social distancing brought up my fears of abandonment and feelings of isolation and my partner stayed very close, verbally and physically demonstrating a commitment and love I never felt before. A love I know I deserve but have trouble at times accepting. Our family had to come to terms with what it means to support a first responder. We felt the sacrifice watching Dad/Stepdad venture out as a frontline worker. We felt the pull to help others as well as the desire to lock all the doors, because of this we realized how proud we are of him. Of all the men and women like him that face dangers of all kinds so others don’t have to. We felt proud of ourselves for holding it down in his absence and when we all couldn’t be together. I challenge everyone to take a moment and look at all the hard, the heavy, the tragic, and traumatic this year has forced them to face and note the strength, the resilience, tenacity, and the love they have around them. Find the simple things that feed your soul. Love your people with determination and commitment. And be there for your friends.

Navigating 2020