BIG NEWS!
New House – New Beginnings
We are moving!
This is big! Up until now, we have been a blended family in two different houses, meaning that we would spend all our free time together as a family in one of our houses. All throughout the last school year, we have had set days when James and his kids would come to the city and other days, when I would drive myself and my kids out to the suburbs for a family after-school activity and dinner, then drive all the way back. We had a routine down: Meet up around 5 and play until about 6:30/7. Then James would start ushering the kids through the shower, while I made dinner. We’d sit down to dinner by 7:30 and three courses later, around 8:30pm, the kids would go brush teeth and two of them would get into the car to drive back home.
The problem with this routine was that it got later and later; partially due to dinner often becoming more outdrawn as the year progressed. You see, dinnertime is the time we really connect with each of our kids through the Peaks & Pits Game. Everyone at the table gets a turn to talk about his day and everyone else has to listen in earnest to what each family member has to say. Just because you have finished talking about yourself, doesn’t mean you can now tune out and start reciting your answers for tomorrow’s math exam in your head. Oh, don’t I wish that that’s what our kids actually were thinking about when they absentmindedly shove their food around their dinner plates, making noise and thereby drowning out their siblings’ stories…
But I think the main reason it kept getting later and later for anyone to leave is that nobody actually wanted to leave anymore. Our family had become so close, so tightly knitted, in such a short amount of time, that the kids truly behave like biological siblings who have known (and loved and hated) each other their whole lives. Our Littles (6 and 7 years old) might be fighting over a toy and if the Bigs (10 and 11) are around, they will both jump to the one Little’s defense who was wronged, whether that’s the bio-sibling or the step-sibling they’ve only known for a year. And vice versa.
By the end of the school year, the kids were complaining when they had to get in the car at night to drive back. James and I were exhausted. So, during that last month of the school year, when teachers are done teaching anyway, kids’ brains cannot possibly hold another ounce of new knowledge, and – as teachers – we love to just put in a movie for every class, we as the parents let it all slide. First just one day per week, then two; the last week of the school year, the kids shared a bed with a sibling every night we had them and we just drove them school from wherever we had spent the night. Oh, we knew that driving kids to the other’s house right after school and then 23 miles back the next morning in time for school was not the ideal solution. Having them packed in a twin size bed in twos was far from ideal. Although that is what they CHOSE to do on their own accord; the couch as well as an air mattress were always available.
A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
James and I knew very quickly into our relationship that this was where we were headed – one family under one roof. Our romance developed like that of two crazy teenagers. We were so in love right from the start; everyone else could see it, too. It must have been at least a year and a half ago when we were at the gym, just talking. A random guy in his mid-50s walks by, stops and looks at us. We didn’t really notice him until he tells James, “Well, kiss her already.” Puzzled, we look at him. He adds, “If you don’t kiss her, I will.” I smile politely and tell the man, “Thank you, but… uh, we’re not together.” James is also shaking his head “no”, albeit ever so slightly. The nice guy proceeds to tell us how he can see that we are very much in love and that it would be a shame if we didn’t do anything about it. Turns and leaves us standing there, dumbfounded.
For the rest of our workout, we tried to neither speak nor look at each other.
We should have been used to it by then. The nice gym guy had by no means been the first person to comment on our relationship or lack thereof. Other than our friends who had been making remarks that we belong together for a while, total strangers had come up to us in a bar to tell us “what a cute couple we were.” We weren’t even officially a couple!
When someone close to us suggested to me that maybe James was in love with me, I flat-out went and asked him. Because we were buddies, right? Sure there were a few sparks. And yes, he was interested in me because he was raising his two kids by himself (literally, as it turns out but his ex-wife with whom he has joint custody and her mother-of-the-year-award is another post entirely). I remember distinctly telling him that I wanted to ask him something but that he didn’t have to give me an answer if he didn’t want to. I posed my question and reiterated how I didn’t expect a response; quickly adding that actually, I’d prefer not to know because we had become such good friends. He looked me right into the eye and said, “But I want to answer you.” Okaaaaayyyyy… I braced myself. “I am so totally in love with you”, he said.
Now, me being ever the skeptic told myself, “Awww, he’s so sweet, but many men have told the same thing to me and many other women.” However, though practical and realistic, I am also known to not shy away from taking calculated risks. As much as I had been trying to convince myself otherwise, I had fallen for this James guy – my James – long before I ever dared to ask him that one question which decided everything from that point forward. As much as he might break my heart in the future, deep down I trusted him that he wouldn’t. It takes an empath to know another empath, I guess. When you connect with someone on this level of emotional intimacy, long before you ever think about becoming physically intimate with that person, you just know that anything is a risk worth taking where this person is concerned.
A NEW BEGINNING
So here we are now, further blending our already very stirred and partially blended family under one roof. James’ house is almost empty; we spent most of the weekend cleaning it out. We are hoping to close on our new house next month, at the same time as I plan on giving the 30-day notice on my rental house.
And every day, I am so thankful that I dared to just ask him back then. Every day since, he has shown me in every way how much he really meant it when he told me that he was in love with me.
Maybe the reason our kids are so excited about this plan to combine families is that they see it, too. They see the love that surrounds them. I once heard someone say that she “wanted a marriage that makes her kids want to get married.” At this rate, none of our kids will ever want to get MARRIED. They have all witnessed a bad marriage before, one that was comprised of a lot of bickering, some yelling, a bit of phony public display of affection, but not a lot of mutual respect and deep understanding for each other. Nowadays, every day they spend with us, they see a relationship that is so full of love and understanding for each other that even any major disagreements are settled immediately and using “our inside voices”. And we do argue – after all, I AM European; arguing to us is a sport. I will blog about how to argue effectively with your significant other later… right after this move is done and we have argued enough over which room gets which drapes LOL.
Ashley@Shakenstirredandblended
Hi, I'm Ashley and I am a freelance writer and editor for one local and one national publication. In my spare time, I teach foreign languages and manage two households. Oh, and raise four children. It's a crazy life that I chose and I love every second of it :o)
