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Meghan,
I'm soooo glad you and Sue met!!! She's a triathlete and sounds like a
really interesting person to me.

Carolyn,
Your dd is going to have a huge adjustment, with loads of anger.
A parent divorcing and remarrying is one of the biggest betrayals a child can
ever live through. Are you in counseling with her? I would highly recommend
finding a good one, or else she will find herself in counseling or dealing
with a lot of anger issues as an adult I would guess.
It's more difficult for kids to deal with than anyone believes. Our society
says it's all ok, they'll adjust. I don't buy that. I think seeking
counseling is a good idea. And I'm really glad you're not buying into that
tough love garbage. She needs your gentleness and understanding more than
ever I'm sure!!

I will dig out my lemon curd recipe....I may have a crumpet one somewhere
although I've never made these since leaving home. It would be fun to do with
the kids.

Ren

KT

>
>
>I guess I need to make more of a point to spend more one on one time
>with her, although mostly what she asks for is more time with him.
>Recently, he's been making an increased effort to spend more time with
>her. I often feel like she's just trying to keep us apart. Three is
>such a difficult number to balance, we so often end up divided two and
>one.
>

I'm replying to an old post and I haven't read all the digests, yet,
since I just got back from a 10-day trip. Forgive me if this has been
said or it has blown up into a huge argument that already died down and
I'm starting it up again. :)

My thought for your 3 yo and your new dh is for the two of them to spend
as much time together as humanly possible. I've been in this situation,
and I was grateful to see my two sons bonding with my new husband. Now
that my sons are teenagers (19 & 17), I often find myself wishing that
they had spent more time together. It took many years before we heard
anything even resembling "you're not my father!" out of either of them
(first time a year ago, and we've been married for 12 years). So I
would say that we did a whole lot right in the bonding-with-the-stepdad
thing. But it's never perfect. The way I looked at it is that my sons
would soon be gone from the house (don't blink!), and I would have my
husband all to myself for the rest of our lives. That early time when
they went to rocket-launches and baseball games together was precious to
them, served their relationship well then, and paid off in huge ways
when there was conflict later.

Three year olds can be fickle and I can imagine a little one pushing one
of you away by turns. I say go with it. Time is short. And try not to
act too possessive of your husband, because 3 yo's are also very good
imitators. ;)

Tuck