Together forever or Not.

Our whole family was together for the weekend and we had a great time, but two days with three kids made me feel like I lived and spoke to my husband but didn’t actually see him. Perhaps it is my obsession with perfection when my stepsons are with us. I want our time together as a complete family to be idyllic and the reality is closer to crazy. Our fourteen-year-old is obsessed with video games and, since he doesn’t get to play them at his Mom’s, he never wants to leave the house when he is with us. Ah, the thrill of the “Battle for Middle Earth.” Meanwhile our 18-year-old wants to go out, be active, and do things. The 5-year-old seems to get bratty the minute I want her to be the easy-going little sister. At these moments the question that haunts me is …”How do people with four or five kids do it? I get overwhelmed with three. Or do I?? Am I overwhelmed or actually obsessed because in my stepmom-dream-world I want our time together as a family to resemble a Norman Rockwell painting? Come to think of it, why is that too much to ask? Don’t blended families deserve a little bliss too? Perhaps we have found bliss and just don’t know it. Is it not blissful to have time away from the ones you love? One of the luxuries of my blended family is that we all have opportunities to get away from each other: the boys spend time with their Mom, my husband gets away to do things with them, and I have the ease of a single child without the parental guilt. Kahlil Gilbran wrote in his book The Prophet, “Stand together yet not too near together. For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.” So instead of worrying about being a “perfect family” I am going to try and relax and enjoy our time together and then truly enjoy what a lot of families dream of… our time away from each other.