In True Mom Fashion

I meant to start this blog months ago, but in true full time working mom and stepmom fashion I’m late. What really has kicked it into high gear is deployment season. I really felt I needed to document this next year (and I started to regret not having done it sooner) because you really cannot make up the stuff that goes on in this house. I’m a military wife. I am a mother to three young kiddos: Xander, 9, Gabi, 6, and Queen Sofie, 4. I am a full time stepmom to three teenage girls: Amaya, 16, Kayla, 14, and Aaliyah, 12. People often wonder and ask where our co-parents are because it’s not often you see a full time blended family. They’re out of state and that makes visits challenging and few and far in between. My husband and I have been together for 6 years and married for 4. Sofie is the “ours” baby and Gabi is mine, technically, but legally adopted by my husband a year ago.
This is my first deployment being away from my family (mom, dad, siblings, etc.) and taking on single parenthood as a mother and dun, dun, duuunnnnn.. a stepmom. When hubs told me he was deploying, it was just after a really rough season with our eldest teen and co-mom. Nothing was in harmony. Everything fell on my shoulders and I wanted to pack my car, load up the kids and dog, and drive west. I told him, “I don’t want to do this. Right now, in this moment, I don’t feel I can.” Are you kidding me? Live with a teen who is determined to make my life miserable, while trying to sustain the other five? No thank you. Did I know this part of what I was getting into in military blended family life six years ago? Absolutely not. Nothing can prepare you for the shenanigans in being a stepmom.
He’s gone. It’s me, the kids, the dogs, the sports schedules, the work schedule, the household cleaning, the laundry, the unknown incidentals, the groceries, the cooking, the holidays, all of our birthdays… I could go on. When my therapist told me our goal was to shift my perspective on deployment, I wanted to cuss him out. Hello? Did you not hear the list I just gave you of all the things? What he said next is a big reason I’m sitting here writing this and still married, “What does God say about mental health? God says to take your thoughts captive (2Corinthians 10:5). Think about what is true, what is honorable, what is right, what is pure, what is lovely (Philippians 4:8). You know the rest. So what does that mean? It means he’s given you the power to fix your thoughts and change your perspective to whatever you WANT.” Mind. Blown. I’d heard these verses many times before, but never the power behind them. So here we go. The first few days have already been eventful.. here’s to approximately 300 more.