Today, I didn't cry

Ladies, I sincerely love you. I really, really do. I didn't expect the kind of outpouring of friendly advice and virtual hugs I received because of my blog post yesterday (Today, I cried).

I feel so incredibly lucky to have your support via the blog, Stepchicks or on Twitter.

I wanted to say thank you to each and every one of you who have offered words of encouragement, invited me over for sleepovers or girls' night out/in and even good old fashioned hugs. I seriously don't think I could have mustered the strength to carry through the "life as a single stepmom" with you.

So thanks my lovelies. You're the best Stepmom BFFs a girl could have and you freaking rock!

xoxo

Today, I Cried

Today, I cried...

I cried because I'm worried about what will happen when I'm inevitably sick with an illness that no amount of money can cure.

I cried because I'm not rich enough to not worry and not poor enough to go on welfare

I cried because my tank top keeps creeping up underneath my dress

I cried because I'm tired and my soul hurts

I cried because my super-mascaraed eyelash fell in my eye

I cried because I want to escape to my mother-in-law's beach house and drink wine with her by the campfire

I cried because I'm sad that this time two years ago I was pregnant

I cried because I forgot to pop a Xanax before heading into work today

I cried because my anti-depressant doesn't seem to be working today

I cried because I feel used and taken for granted

I cried because I've only had 4 hours of sleep and clearly that's not enough

I cried because I want to sleep in and take the day off but still get paid for it

Seperation Anxiety: Dating Your Dude Before the Divorce is Final

This whole Hailey Glassman situation has my knickers* in a knot.

After posting Is Hailey Glassman Really a Ho? I went on to post a question about it to my MomsLikeMe.com mommy tribe. This is a group of ladies made up of mostly bio-moms. I'm not entirely sure there are any other stepmoms on the site so I was sort of expecting a little backlash.

Within 30 minutes of posting, one of the moms on the site did say she'd have harsh words for any woman who would date her husband (should they separate) before the divorce is final.

For the sake of full disclosure, I did meet and start dating my husband while he was separated from his ex-wife. They had not divorced yet; however, they had no plans to reconcile. I did not feel like a ho; in fact, I felt sexier and more wanted than I ever had before.

However, reading the social media responses (I also Tweeted it) has stirred up a fire in my gut. I wish I could say I've remained calm, cool and collected as I've debated Ms. Glassman's role in Gosselin's life, but I've become an almost obnoxious fighter of daddy's new girlfriend's rights.

I know there are a lot of ladies who are or who have dated guys with kids that wonder if they're doing the right thing by dating their guy before he's divorced. While most people would say they're taking the moral high road by waiting until the divorce is final, what is the harm in dating your dude before the final decree is signed if the love is gone from the previous marriage?

Wouldn't it stand to reason that if Daddy (or Mommy) are happier with their new(er) partner then everyone wins?

Color me curious: Did you date your dude before or after his divorce was final and how did you feel about that?

Cool Stepmom Blog Graphics

My dearest Step-lovelies,
Just a quick note to let you all know I just found a fun site with fun stepmom graphics you can add to your own stepmom blogs.

I included a sample below of the 3 screens-worth of graphics but I'd consider checking out the site if want some cute stepmom blog bling :-)



graphics for moms




graphics for moms





graphics for moms


Happy Blogging!

Two Stepmoms walk into a BlogHer...

With the first day of BlogHer under my belt, I'm beginning to wonder if Stepmom bloggers will ever show themselves en masse like I've seen the traditional Mommy blogger set.

With a few exceptions of ladies that blog and who happen to be stepmoms, I've seen very few stepmom bloggers at BlogHer. I'm beginning to think Izzy Rose and I are the only ones.

Ladies, there are 1,500 bloggers at BlogHer this year. Being the only two Stepmamas in a room full of mommy bloggers feels like being the only two brunettes pledging the all-blonde sorority.

Next year's BlogHer will be in New York City August 6-7. Dearest Stepmoms -- I hope you can get on those planes and haul your cute stepmom-blogging asses to BlogHer in 2010. Seriously, it's almost a crime how under-represented the stepmom blogging set is at BlogHer.

Being only one of a few stepmoms at BlogHer has reminded me how far we still have to go as a blogging niche. We're parents, too, damn it! We blog about our lives, our families and our frustrations. If Zoe Jane (A BlogHer-ista I watched on a panel who pens Mommy is Moody) and other mommy bloggers can write about their fears and frustrations about post partum depression and post-baby sexy lives (or lack thereof) certainly we can 'represent' and talk about our struggles and enjoyments as stepmoms...right?

Let me put it to another way: I sat in on a session about how brands and bloggers can work together and I heard story after story of mommy bloggers who, on a daily basis, turn down PR reps' requests to post (and keep or give away the product) a review about a cool dress or a pair of shoes or anything else a typical woman might use. I think I even wondered out loud why in the heck I, as a stepmom blogger, have never received a request like that. (For the record, I became a swag whore at this show and do plan on dabbling in some product reviewing in the coming days). Is it because I'm a stepmom? Is it assumed that my buying influence isn't as strong as my Mom 1 counterpart?

What all of this has shown me is how proud I am of my fellow stepmom bloggers and how much it pains me that we don't feel as comfortable publicly declaring our devotion to our craft even though we write as well as the next woman.

In the coming year, I'd love to see more of my stepmom bloggers stand up and be proud of their blogs. I've been toying with a few ideas that BlogHer has inspired me to implement so be on the look out my lovelies for some fun Stepmom-blogging inspired projects. (First up, a survey!)

Who knows, maybe 2010 will be the year of the stepmom blogger.

Young McErin is going to BlogHer...eieio

And at this BlogHer she had an e-mail....eieio
With an Erin Erin here and an erinexperiment.com there....eieio

(Sorry, the song got stuck in my head and wouldn't leave but I'm better now)

Ahem....

This weekend Chicago will play host to the fifth annual BlogHer Conference. I'm uber excited about BlogHer. I attended the third annual event when it was in Chicago two years ago and had a great time, learned a lot, etc. (Coincidentally I apparently got pregnant around that time too.)

With two additional years of blogging under my belt, a social network to call home and a bevy of blogging folks I call friends, this year should be an even better BlogHer.

If you're going to be attending BlogHer, I'd love to meet you. Rather than list my entire agenda on here, however, I'm going to drop in my e-mail address in hopes that you shoot me an email and let me know how I can get a hold of you!!!

While at BlogHer, I do plan to pal around with Izzy Rose of Stepmothersmilk.com fame so if you'd like to meet either of us shoot us an email!!!! We do bite but only petit-fours and martini olives ;-)

Ciao bellas!!!
xoxo

see you at BlogHer!

Stepparent guilt

If there was anything in the world I wish I could go back and re-do, it would be to be a better, nicer stepdaughter to my stepdad.

I was not the nicest stepkid in the world when I was younger. I was nowhere near a monster, but I wasn't winning any Miss Step-Congeniality prizes either.

I was a bit of a brat to my mom. I was a super brat to my stepdad. No matter what he did on my behalf, I wasn't having any of it. I rarely said thank you, even when he made his yummy dutch apple pancakes on Sunday mornings..or when he helped foot the bill for my incredibly expensive reconstructive jaw surgery...or paid to send me to college. I wasn't even his biological kid, yet he treated me like I was.

Words will never be able to do my appreciation justice.

When I think of the bad attitude I had when I was a teen-ager, it makes me cringe. It makes me want to be a better stepdaughter now. It really makes me wonder if he ever wished I would stay with my father for long periods of time just so he could have some peace and quiet with my mom.

I love my stepkids as much as I think I would feel if they were my biological children yet when I'm alone at night, I'm extremely thankful they're sleeping at someone else's house.

For all of its frustrations, there's a certain peace to my family situation right now: I pick the kids up from camp, feed them dinner, listen to them talk about their day and then wave a contented good-bye as their mom takes them away in her SUV.

Is it wrong to feel that way? Is it wrong to feel glad to have the night to myself most nights? I was far more aggravating of a stepkid to my own stepfather so I've been wondering a lot lately: Did my stepdad every wish I'd go away?

Broken open

Today I was broken open -- both literally and figuratively.

Literally
It was a day like any other. I got up, got dressed (black Gap T-shirt; gray Old-Navy cargo pants), got gas in the car and listened to classical music on Pandora as I worked. On the way to lunch, as I got in the car, my pants ripped completely down the back of my right butt cheek down to my mid-hamstring. It wasn't a seam and at first wasn't as big as I thought, that is, until I put my hand behind me and asked my car-mate (luckily a woman) how bad it was.

"Well," she said, "I can tell you're wearing polka dot undies today."

I believe "Oh Fuck" were the words I used immediately after.

Lucky for me she'd had a long-sleeved shirt I was able to wrap around my waist as I laughed off my embarrassment.

I spent the rest of my day shrouded in a denim shirt/skirt hoping no one caught a glimpse of my ass.

Figuratively
As I drove home, with my polka-dotted underwear flailing in the breeze of my car, I began to get upset about the tear in my pants.

In addition to having the pants for only a short time (and they were cute to boot), I'd also have to return the little suckers and the matching pair I'd purchased a few days earlier. (I wasn't about to risk another tear)

It didn't help that rush hour was infuriatingly slow which gave me time to get even more upset. I got upset about my pants; about my loneliness; about my husband's job; about my stepkid's illness; about my inability to say no or to turn things down. I beat myself for my lack of willpower regarding the food I've been inhaling at night and for my ever-expanding girth.

All of this sadness and frustration put me in the foulest of moods that by the time I made a quick stop to pick up a concert ticket from a friend, I was near tears.

After I couldn't find the ticket I was supposed to pick up, the flood gates broke wide open. My brain knew my strengths but my exhausted soul couldn't take the stress anymore.

And with one broken pair of pants, I wept.

I wept the entire way home, wiping my eyes well enough to change into a skirt before heading to get the kids from camp. I wept after their mom picked them up and after I asked her for another night to myself tomorrow.

I felt vindicated when the store took both pants back and gave me a $5 gift card as an apology but then wept some more when the cute outfits I tried on didn't fit me the way I wanted them to.

Stepmotherhood, my therapist says, is stressful enough. But, he says, to add the extra issues I'm dealing with right now is almost worrisome. Nearly every medical person I've come in contact with (my ob-gyn last week; my therapist on Sunday, my mom the nurse) asks me how I'm managing to keep it all together so well.

Apparently today I reached my threshold for maximum amount of stress. Who knew one rip could have such a major effect on my psyche?

What does any of this have to do with being a stepmom? I guess it would be that you're going to have good days and bad days. There will be days in your stepmom life that you'll feel like you're doing everything really well. And then there are days when you're going to feel like a complete failure.

It's how you handle those days in between that count.

Stepmom Book Review: The Package Deal: My (not-so) Glamorous Transition from Single Gal to Instant Mom

This summer, my reading list has been mostly filled with stepmom books:
Stepmonster
No One's the Bitch
A Career Girl's Guide to Becoming a Stepmom

All of the books have been enormously informative. Stepmonster told me me it's okay that I may not love my stepchildren as much as their mom does; No One's the Bitch reminded me that it takes two to tangle in the stepfamily shuffle; and A Career Girl's Guide helped me figure out how to gain some peace and solitude in my crazy house.

Well ladies, I'd like to introduce you to The Package Deal: My (not-so) Glamorous Transition from Single Gal to Instant Mom (if you haven't heard of it already). Written by the glamourous Izzy Rose of Stepmothersmilk.com fame, The Package Deal is the perfect antidote for your Stepmom Blues.

Izzy carries her sense of humor from her blog into her book, with special attention paid to maintaining references to her blog. If you've been a reader of Stepmothersmilk.com for a while, you'll probably remember some of the issues -- smelling like the boys, when the Tall One dates, should you invite the ex to the wedding?

All of the thorny issues she encounters she handles with typical Izzy grace and composure. You'll laugh so hard it will hurt and then you'll want to hand the book over to your loved one and have him read a passage or two just to give him the gist of how all of the Step-craziness feels sometimes.

The book, for all of its humor, also includes some touchy subjects that even hilarious Izzy reminds us aren't always for the weak of heart.

Ladies, if you haven't picked up your copy today, I highly advise reading this book this summer. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wonder if you can become Izzy's new BFF.

Order The Package Deal: My (not-so) Glamorous Transition from Single Gal to Instant Mom on Amazon

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Highness

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Highness,
I'd like to lodge a complaint about the chores I am doing in this house. I am 14 years old and if you recall, this is not MY house. It is Kerry's house. I just live here because my mom does. I feel it is unfair that I have to do more chores than both of you do put together. Is there a way we can discuss the obvious unbalanced workload that is my chores versus yours. If you do not do something about my chores, I will just stop doing them and then WHO will clean your house then?

Regards,
Erin

---

The letter you've just read above was an actual letter from me to my parents when I was 14. I'd just moved up from the only town I'd ever lived in to live with my mom and stepdad in a really small town 2 hours away.

I hated having so many new chores to do. While my father may shown his love through his Gold Amex, my stepfather felt like showing me he cared by giving me a sense of responsibility.

And I hated it.

I believe I penned this letter after I'd gotten in trouble for not sweeping around the kitty litter well enough. It seemed like I was always getting in trouble for things relating to cleaning. I wasn't paying enough attention to the details when I dusted or vacuumed or I just forgot to clean something all together.

For most of my teens I resented my stepdad -- and my mom on some level -- for making me do all of these chores. I felt like I'd suffered enough, what, with having to move away from my friends and make new ones. When you're a teen-ager that feels like a fate worse that death.

And so I resorted to the best means of communication I had -- penning a letter. (It's funny how my fondness for pouring out my soul on a page has never changed.) I left the letter on my parent's bed and waited for them to come and apologize to me and admit they'd been burdening me with too many chores.

I was preparing to accept their apology when I heard a "ERINNNNNNNN" come from upstairs. Apparently my letter didn't go over as I'd hoped and I was stuck doing just as many chores as before.

My parents like to remind me of this letter when I, as a stepmom, am belly-aching about how the kids never seem to be as keen on doing the chores around this house as I am. In fact, the Dear Mr. and Mrs. Highness letter has become a family joke.

When I'm bottling the urge to voice my frustration about kids and chores, I'm reminded that I hated them myself. Ironically, or perhaps it's symbolic, I credit my stepdad for making me the must-keep-a-clean-house person I am today. If it weren't for his constant reminders to sift the kitty litter, put away the dishes, wash the deck, take out the trash, etc. I probably would have been a lazier grown-up and a worse role model for my own stepkids.

So Mr. Highness, one last word: Thanks

I know why the stepkid screams

We just found out my husband's project is being extended until the end of September.

As his wife, it's not the words I was longing to hear. I was hoping for something along the lines of "see you next week honey!"

We'll all get to see him a few times between now and the end of his project, but it won't ever feel like enough for me. I can't even imagine what the kids feel like.

***********

My stepkids and I are kindred spirits. We're both the product(s) of divorced parents and both have fathers that have been (at times) physically or mentally distant.

Life is tough enough when you've got a nuclear family with your father cozying up to your mom nearly every night. Zits happen; cats puke and hormones must rage. It's enough to drive you (the kid) and everyone around you ape shit crazy.

Now consider for a second that you've subtracted Dad from your "normal" equation.

That leaves you with k + m - d = ?

Now, add on at least one more parent to that equation (stepmom).

You've now got k + m - (d + s) = ?

Are you following me?

Now, add on a stepfather and a couple of extra stepmom-wanted-to-have-babies kids

You're now at (m + x) + (d + s) x 2 = k + ?

I don't know about you, but I hated math in school. Just writing those equations gave me the ebbie-jeebies. Imagine being the kid in the equation.

On Stepchicks, I see a lot of stepmoms wondering how to get along better with their kids' bio moms, soon-to-be husbands and in-laws. Every once in a while, you'll see a question about how to deal with stepkid issues, but not nearly as often.

I wonder how many Stepmoms stop to think about how crazy-making this family equation might be for the kids. Particularly young(er) kids. If you feel like acting out when your husband or his ex makes a request you're not too fond of, wouldn't it stand to reason that your stepkids might act similarly?

I'm not suggesting you surrender control if your stepdaughter starts using your jewelry without asking or your stepson's memory lapses particularly as it relates to the placement of his dirty underwear, but at least give them a second chance and remember they got shafted in this deal too.

*for the record, this is also my 500th post. :-)

I left my heart in San Francisco

This past weekend, I took a break from my stepmom duties to visit my husband on the West Coast. It was such a great trip it actually hurt my stomach to come back (just ask the bottle of Pepto I've been chugging for the past 24 hours).

It felt almost orgasmic to get to see my husband alone. We didn't have kids or cats asking for our attention. Instead, we paid attention to each other. We did things like we used to do when we were dating: walking around, eating out, contemplating politics and life.

It's weekends like these that remind me what I love about my husband: his sense of adventure, his patience when he knows I am doing something out of my comfort zone, his god-awful love of road trips.

We had a good time which was a wonderful break from some of the tougher times we'd been going through lately. Up until a few weeks ago, our ever after wasn't winding up as happy as I'd hoped. The struggles of trying to be a bi-coastal blended family had taken its toll and we were arguing more than we were saying I love you.

Darn near any step/blended family book will tell you that you've got to have your spouse on your side in order to face all of the crap that blended family life throws at you. When you and your spouse are at odds, then everything seems messier and far more complicated.

Seeing my husband again was like seeing him him again for the first time. He was excited to see me and I him. We were nearly like love birds. I would have almost made myself puke we were almost that cute.

I decided after this weekend that what my husband and I needed -- what a lot of couples need -- is to take a weekend and just stop being the two stressed out souls you are during the week. Lose yourself while you discover new things or new places with this guy you vowed to "love, honor and cherish 'til death do you part...."

For me and for now, I'm going to swallow my Pepto, call my husband and count the days until we get to see each other again...