Deep Breaths

Calm yourself, Aria. *deepbreaths*

See Y'all!

See what complaining that things are all sunshine and daises will get you?

It's basically asking the Universe to sprout a tornado and stomp on your daisies. I should never worry that things are going too well... I am, after all, married... with a step-son. Therefore, no matter how un-blogable life may seem at the time, it will always pass.

So here I am again on Monday, posting late as hell with less than 6 hours sleep because we road-tripped to Austin and the only one that got any sleep before 6 am was the turbo-terror-tot. But, it wasn't just hubby and I. This time we had his older son with us. Because the boy has just graduated from high school and is hiding out from the real world and is visiting with us for the longest he has visited my husband ever before in his natural born life cause he's pissed off his own mother so much that she's ready to KILL him which is just oh so nice... for them *eyeroll*

*deepbreathsthinkhappythoughtsdeepbreaths*

OK, this is not my first foray into the world of evil stepmother. My ex-husband had two girls from his first marriage too and they were 12 & 13 when my daughter was born. Besides, my daughter was 8+ when the turbo-terror-tot was born, so even with my own children, it's a situation of much-older, quasi-grown child that lives outside my own home, assimilating to life with not only me, but a munchkin and the way we do things in the day-to-day in my (our) home.

In a way, all of my step-children have been lucky too, because I understand step-parenting from both sides of the coin. I grew up as a step-child. Both of my parents have been remarried to their current spouses for almost three times the length of their marriage to each other. And I had one step-parent that made the job look like... how can I put this in gentle unoffensive terms?... someone trying to do a root-canal without anesthesia on a naturally twitchy person who has a low pain threshold; and the other step-parent made the job look like it was the most easy and natural thing in the world, (which, I knew even then, was far from the truth) and treated me like their own daughter... well as best as they could. See the thing that I've discovered about being a step-parent is that IT, not parenting, is the hardest job in the world.

Mainly because you're in essence putting your parenting into effect on someone who is (or was) being raised by someone who's values or personality or way of doing things is so far removed from the person that you're living with that it caused those two people to divorce. They're generally, big differences. Plus, they're not yours, so discipline and whatnot are a sticky situation no matter what you do. Then you have the child's feelings toward you and toward the parent that you're with, along with whatever is being said about you by the other parent. It's a parenting mine-field combined with a spousal-relationship mine-field; and if you're lucky most of you will get out of said fields still being able to walk or not being maimed too badly to go on into later years and their adult lives... and if not, well, the possibilities are endless and none of them are pretty.

Anyway... step-son is here, and has been for several days... again. Two weeks ago he was here for over a week (before that we'd seen him about once a year because that's the way the boy wanted it) So, we're in the 'growing pains phase' of getting to know you. And before I start bitching, I'd like to point out that I am aware that I'm oh so very blessed in the step-child department. All of my step-children have been good kids with no real deal-breaker problems... none of them ever went out of their way to torment me or physically injure me, but with that said...

He's driving me crazy.

First of all, he's huge. Not fat-wise, tall-wise. Six foot eight inches in this itty bitty trailer is a bit overwhelming. And he moves mopily... I know that probably doesn't make sense, but I'm not sure how else to describe it. He does everything super-slow and super-cautious and he doesn't put common sense into the equation at all. For example; I finally got it through to him that when the ice cube bucket runs out, the last person who got an ice cube needs to empty all the ice cube trays into the bucket and refill the trays with water for the next go around of filling the ice bucket. OK, but this boy is so household-task ignorant that he was refilling one tray at a time, putting it in the freezer and then repeating the process for the next five trays. He did dishes the other day, and was using the same process. Hastily scrub one plate, rinse one plate gingerly under running water, put one plate into drainboard... scrub one fork like it's a rattlesnake, hold under running water for 1.2 seconds otherwise you might get your whole hand wet, put fork in drainboard however it lands... scrub one...

OMG. *deepbreathsmaintaincomposuredeepbreaths*

Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's because I have been doing the housewife thing for so long that I've honed everything down to a systematic science. Or maybe it's because kids these days are so used to automatic ice makers in fridge doors and pitching everything into a dishwasher that they all are really this clueless. Then again, maybe not. My 10 year old knows how to wash dishes. My step-daughters, who's mother was a super-slob the entire time I was married to my ex, knew how to wash dishes. So, I don't know. I know that none of them have ever known how to put anything back where they found it, so that's probably normal.

And, I do know I'm trying desperately hail Mary full of grace... to not go absolutely sideways on this boy. Because if it was just this mopiness, and ignorance of housekeeping protocol I could probably cope much better... But, it's not.

It's that he thinks he's grown.

And he keeps talking to my husband like he's scolding him. And my husband kinda puts up with it cause he doesn't want to ruin the 'bonding' happy time that they're enjoying now, cause who else can he act like a twelve year old with...

And I want to ring this kid's fucking neck when he does it.

So I finally spoke up and told him: We Are Grown and You Are Not. And when you've had a couple of kids and a long term relationship and a house payment and a car payment and a 9 to 5 with an hour commute each way and you've been living that life for more than a minute, THEN you're grown... and guess what? When THAT happens; We Will STILL Be More Grown Than YOU.

*deepbreathsleavetheroombeforeyouwindupinjaildeepbreaths*