Yesterday, I posted about how I'll be moving into Mr Fix It's house which he had previously bought and lived in with his ex. Well, I don't mind that at all. And I'm not super concerned about whether or not he picks up his socks...I don't mind picking them up if I come across them. But what I am concerned about is how he and my 15 year old daughter will do living together.
Now don't get me wrong, Mr Fix It and Little Miss (that's what I'll call my hormonal, attitude ridden teenage freshmen) totally get along. Sometimes too well. Little Miss loves to pick up on all of Mr Fix It's little jokes and annoying teasing habits. Like when I'm backing into the garage, Mr Fix It will slam his hand on the car in an effort to make me think I hit something. Yeah, whatever...after the 100th time, I know I am not hitting anything you idiot! But now Little Miss will do the same thing when Mr Fix It is not with us. Oh, so funny. Or not.
So as I talked about yesterday, Mr Fix It's ex is not in the picture anymore (obviously). But my ex-boyfriend, my daughter's father, is absolutely a huge part of our lives. In fact, his entire family is...his mother, his two sisters and brother and their families. We all live local to one another and for the past 15 years, we have all been at almost all of Little Miss's softball and soccer games, school plays, awards ceremonies, birthday parties, etc. It didn't start off great. As I mentioned before, her dad and I went through a bitter custody fight back when I left him when Little Miss was only a year old. But as the years went on, we reconciled and truly have a partnership in raising our daughter together. She spends a few nights/days a week at his house and he is very involved in her life. So she has a dad. Though Mr Fix It will be the official step-dad, the reality is, he won't be getting to make too many decisions when it comes to Little Miss. Those will be made between her father and I. Now Mr Fix It gets along with my ex and his whole family. In fact, their entire family (aunts, uncle, grandma and cousins) will all be at our wedding this April. It's a blessing to be able to all get along. I know there are horror stories out there about children being put in the middle of unfortunate break ups and divorces.
Anyway, to sum all this up...my biggest fear is that Mr Fix It is going to have a lot of input or opinions about my daughter and how she should be raised. And it's always so much easier to tell someone how to raise their children and how to discipline them and what to let them do or not do when you don't have kids yourself, ya know? Walk a mile in my shoes, mister! While I will absolutely consult Mr Fix It and expect him to be the head of our household and therefore an integral part of disciplining or correcting her when needed, I also know that he seems to swing to the far end of the spectrum when it comes to Little Miss.
He absolutely believes she is a good kid. In fact, he jokes that if she wasn't a good kid, he wouldn't have proposed. However, Little Miss doesn't have a totally typical life. Granted, we live in a nice city, she plays sports in the local leagues and now attends the local high school and has grown up here and has best friends she's known since grade school. But there's a little bit of a difference...her Aunt and Uncle work for Jay Leno. They have been with him for years. So she is blessed to be able to get things like this:
And we get to meet people like these:
And she gets to go to concerts and get back stage passes and she has signed posters, beach towels, CD's and such from people like Zac Effron and Vanessa Hudgens and Raven Simone. She's been on vacations to Hawaii, a cruise to Mexico, a castle in Canada, she's traveled to Seattle and goes to San Francisco, Vegas and Spring Training baseball camps in Arizona all the time. She has autographs from all kinds of baseball players and even got to go down in the dugout last summer at Angel stadium to watch the fireworks after the game. And last season, we got to be there in the audience at American Idol when the winner Kris Allen was announced over Adam Lambert. 17 rows back, sitting amidst all those stars. Yeah, she's pretty lucky.
And so Mr Fix It feels the need to 'put her in her place' sometimes and not allow her to have everything she wants. Neither Mr Fix It nor I ever had a childhood like hers growing up. We came from pretty dysfunctional alcoholic households. And so for me, it's a blessing to know my daughter has such a wonderful life and as 'normal' as a healthy childhood as we can give her with all our faults. So my biggest fear, is that Mr Fix It is going to be a slave driver once we are all living together. And then Little Miss will go running to daddy wanting to stay at his house all the time because he lets her get away with everything. (sigh)
I just keep telling myself not to stress out about any of this until we area actually living together and see how things unravel. I will definitely be on my knees in a lot of prayer as the move begins :)
So, what are your biggest fears, concerns or doubts about what might be a problem for you in your transition into marriage and living together?
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5 comments:
Wow, your daughter is very lucky to have had all of these wonderful experiences in her life! I'm not a aprent, but my mom always tells me that a parents' dream is to give their children more than what they had for themselves - which you have totally accomplished and should be so proud. Hopefully Mr. Fix-it will defer to you for parenting rules, or at least discuss his opinions with you in private before putting Little Miss in line. Good luck :)
Don't stress. Take it one day at a time. Your daughter is one lucky gal!
Little Miss sounds like she's had a pretty good life so far, and thats great that you are able to provide this for her. As for Mr. Fix It, have you guys talked about this already? It might help ease your anxiety, or give you a sense of where he's at if you talk about it in advance. It seems like things have worked out for you guys very well so far so I wouldn't be too worried.
I wonder sometimes what it will be like to have kids with my husband. He is very easy going, where I am am...well uptight. I like things to be in order, things to get done, and I carefully watch what we spend and whatnot. I can just see us having the "bad cop, good cop" scenarios with our kids, and I end up being the hated parent and him not seeing it and brushing me off. I think it's normal though to have the fears that I do, and I'm sure yours are just as normal. In the end, there is really nothing either of us or anyone else can do other than talking to our spouses about future issues. Other than that, only time will tell what will really happen. And once you get there, you just have to cross that bridge then. Easier said than done though right? But I guess its natural to worry about things like that, especially for my personality. =]
Your little Miss has an amazing life due in no small part to you and her dad. Isn't that the beautiful part - to have this big, intertwined extended family? The rest is a process I'm sure you'll figure out quite well (as we can tell by how cool your daughter is).
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