In the beginning

Haven't we all lived in a blended family? I just heard another story about Aunt such-n-such not really being a blood relative. Today's modern blended family is like all things under the sun: not new. The only difference is that it's not a family secret. 


To a certain degree, I could understand why our elders preferred it that way, however, with a modern family like mine it's impossible to cover up. That's not as bad as it may seem either. My first son deserves the right to stay in contact with his biological father while his father deserves to be in his son's life as well. And I deserves some child support. Back in the day when families kept subjects like this a secret, the mother or father gave their child up for adoption to the new family in which that child was joining. How hard that must have been. For me, that would been impossible. My 1st is full blooded African-Am (you get my drift) but I'm now in a bi-racial relationship. His step-father is non mistakenly white and his brothers look very different from him. So, when we're out, it's obvious that we're a blended family. And boy are we not the only blended family out there. This helps my oldest, who's very self-conscious, cope with his situation a bit. He has several friends whose parents are either not together anymore or live in a blended family like he does. He doesn't however have too many white friends with black step-dads though. For him, that took some time to get used to. Actually, it took a lot of time. He was only in the second grade when we united so a lot of confusion was going on his little mind. My step-son however didn't feel the least bit confused. Maybe because his mother is Jamaican so he was used to having a white dad- who really was his dad. Me becoming his step-mother didn't faze him nearly as much as it did for step-brother. Furthermore, my step son is very easy going and lovable. As long as he's being treated with love and fed- he's good. They're only a year apart so that helped a lot too. They play well together. They are very different though. That made our union a bit challenging in the beginning. Since neither of us had ever been in a blended family before nor was our children used to having a sibling fights, misunderstands, non-understandings, confusion, and anything else you can think of started to spill out into our lives. Hubby was used to a son who was true to his age, easy going, lovable, and creative (he could play with a train and one pencil for hours). His new step-son is none of those. He's very mature (sometime too mature), not affectionate, and wants a ball in his hand not an imaginary one. 


Five years and two babies later, we are all pretty much settled in. It's odd but our first son together sorta brought the fam together in a way I can't really put in words from an emotional view. But in other ways it pretty cool. He's the blood brother of both his two older brothers. Linking us together and thus making us a stronger unit. He also has both attributes of his older brothers- which we all are amused to see: he's mature, very lovable, creative, and loves a ball.