Loving Being a Mom

Wow I am still reeling from the week I have had.  But oh how I love that things are beginning to fit into place bit by bit.  Gosh I can even enter my 'new' office without the fear of boxes falling down on my head.  Now there are still boxes, don't get me wrong.  But they are now only waist high.  Whew!

Image via Wikipedia

What else?  Well I am feeling for my dear College Girl who in her very last semester of college is now rushing for the honor theater fraternity.  And it has her frazzled as can be.  Being ADD is not of a benefit at this time for her at all!  In doing so I am thinking so much of her as she has grown up and speculating as to what it will be like for her future.  Jobs, apartments, partners and maybe one day children but no holding my breath on that one.  I do have my adorable grandbabes that my other two (step) kids have provided for me.  Such great moms and dads they are.  Aging from under a year to almost eight we have a good range to enjoy.

I am always looking for things to help out for them too.  You know being a parent does not come with a hand book.  Lord, knows it should though.  So I have been lucky to find a few that might just hit the spot with the parents though.  I want to send to my Turtle and his mom '201 Organic Baby Purees'.  He is eating his first foods and seems to be thrilled in all he can grab.  And of course we want him to have the very best as all parents do.  I know that I made all of College Girls food when she was a babe.  But with the options available today it is easy not only to make their food but to have it free of pesticides, hormones, additives and such.  Tamika Gardner created SimplyBabyFoodRecipes.net to help moms and share these recipes.  And now they are all collated in one book.

Beside making sure there is good food for my Turtle, I pray he is instilled with a love of reading.  His mom loves to read so I know she understands this importance.  I am going to send him a lil cardboard book that him mom can read to him at night.  It is one of Lisa Tawn Bergren's classics "God Gave Us Love".  This will be my Valentine's gift to my lil Turtle.  When Little Cub and Grampa Bear’s fishing adventure is interrupted by mischievous otters, the young polar bear begins to question why we must love others…even the seemingly unlovable. Grandpa Bear gives tender explanations that teach Little Cub about the different kinds of love that is shared between families, friends, and mamas and papas. Grandpa explains that all these kinds of love come from God and that it is important to love others because,

“Any time we show love, Little Cub, we’re sharing a bit of His love.”

In sharing that love I have been blessed to have the children that were born to my husband and his previous wives.  When I first met the two oldest as teens, I knew I would never be their mother.  That at best I would one day get to be a friend to them and someone they could trust to share with.  I hated the view of step moms but I decided to use just that to break the ice with them.  So I told them they did not need to call me mom or even my own name but instead to just call me Step Monster.  They laughed so and embraced the name as a gift to me.  It has never been looked upon as a negative.  College Girl calls her step mom The Other Mother (you have heard me talk well of her here all the time).  But I have found the right name thanks so to Tami Butcher.  She has a book explaining the blended family to children, "My Bonus Mom!"  Isn't that the perfect way to think of it?  I love that it is so well put and a great joy to share the love of extra parents.  My own transition in divorce and remarriage was one that I wanted to be pain free for College Girl (then high school gal).  We kept a good line of communication between us and her father.  He is now the best friend to my own husband.  Our families are so blended that we feel it is only normal and natural to do so much of our lives together.  That is the present we have, gosh, otherwise I would never have had a Princess Emma to enjoy.  That is College Girls lil sis.  We joke that we are extra wives, hubbies, moms and dads so that it confuses many.  But for our family it works best this way.  And even better so the kids get to have all the love in the world from all of us.  

This is a review for Blogging for Books at Waterbrook Multnomah.