Cupcakery

On Thursday night I made four dozen cupcakes.

Boy C wanted to take treats to school to share with his whole class; while I didn’t have the energy to churn out enough cupcakes from our somewhat makeshift kitchen in the Boys’ City to feed all the kids in Boy A’s and Boy B’s classes as well, I sent them each off with enough cakey goodness for themselves and their teacher and four friends, and promised to bake for their classes next visit. They were fine with that.

Some of my most enduring memories of childhood are of my mother’s wonderful baking; there was very little money to spare in our house but always an abundance of biscuits, lamingtons and patty cakes. She even baked cakes to sell to local cafes using the tiny gas stove in the bus we lived in while my dad was building our house.

While I bake well myself, my focus has long been on producing fancypants grownup desserts rather than bulk kid-friendly treats. I made Nigella Lawson’s vanilla cupcakes (modded by pushing a square of milk chocolate into each one) for the Boys, and while they certainly elicited no complaints, they just didn’t have the moist, dense-but-light deliciousness of my own mum’s recipe.

I would love to think that my cooking could become part of the tapestry of the Boys’ childhood memories, similar to my remembrances of my grandmother’s Neenish tarts and my mother’s amazing cakes. Not in a “motherly” way, obviously, but Boy C greatly enjoys cooking with me and often thanks me for cooking “such yummy things” for them. I really hope we can hold on to cooking as a shared pleasure as he gets older.

Interestingly, I often notice that when I’ve had successes with dishes for the Boys, next visit it will transpire that their Mum has *coincidentally* cooked pancakes or chocolate self-saucing pudding or whatever it is a few times since then herself, and – of course – that hers is HEAPS better than mine, her recipe is the only “right” recipe and my (previously appreciated) way of cooking the dish is now suddenly “wrong”. And suddenly it can feel like I’ve got three little food police watching, critiquing and sometimes rejecting my meals….

I’m never competetive about the cooking thing, but I do work hard to find a niche where I can contribute to the Boys’ lives in ways they can accept, so it stings a bit when their Mum seems to be trying to undermine me on this level. Still, if that is what’s happening (and it may not be!), it can only be because she feels threatened in her role. Strange, because there’s no question in the Boys’ minds or in my mind as to whether I’m a rival mummy figure – it just isn’t that way at all, even with Boy C who has a close and affectionate relationship with me.

For instance, if we’re out and anyone mistakes us for a mum with her kids, the Boys are so quick to discount the idea that it can leave the hapless commenter looking a bit stunned. Recently we were all boarding a plane and the flight attendant on welcome duty made a comment about how much “my boys” look like me. My instant response was “No, they’re not mine, they’re my partner’s boys.” She was a little taken aback, so I added “Sorry, but if I hadn’t told you straightaway then they would have, and that could get noisy!”

So, since there’s no question that the Boys would ever see me as a mother, think of me as a mother or get mixed up about who is their mother, and I’m not in any danger of doing that either, plus I’ve tried to communicate these things to the Boys’ Mum by mentioning how proud they are of her and how loyally they speak about her to us, I wish I could just be left in peace to cook pancakes or meatballs or chocolate pudding for them without being undermined!

How do food and cooking work in your stepfamily?

Disengaging

Disengaging is not a new concept in step-land.

But it was new to me when I first came across some articles a few months back.

At that time, I was trying trying trying to get the Lovely Man’s kids, and especially Boy A, to like me.

There were thoughtful little gifts, special efforts to make their favourite foods, questions about their interests and opinions.

Boy B was mostly ok, though he was wary and occasionally rejecting. The day I overheard him tell Boy A that he hated me I went into our bedroom and cried.

Boy C was, as ever, fun and funny to be around, offering me a level of mostly unconditional trust and pleasure at our friendship that felt like it was all that was getting me through.

Boy A, though, was really letting rip. Everything I did was stupid, he felt free to criticise my appearance, my cooking, my family. The sighs of disdain rang out and the eyes rolled and his gaze and ears were always averted from me. He actively sought to exclude me and tried to build alliances with the Lovely Man against me.

My poor sister used to patiently hear out my venting and say:

B, you’ve got to stop trying so hard! Just ignore him if he’s being nasty.

That was her approach with her own (heavily alienated) stepdaughter, and she found there was less pressure on them both.

But me? I Wasn’t Giving Up.

But then, after a particularly awful visit, I came across the disengaging concept.

Here’s the classic piece about The Disengaged Stepparent.

And Help! My Wife is Disengaged, an article aimed at men with frustrated stepparent partners.

And finally, Disengaging Made Easy.

(A lie, I’m afraid. It’s not actually easy. But it’s easier than the alternative!)

I didn’t follow the suggestions exactly.

I haven’t refused to do laundry, or made any big announcements. I will if I need to, though.

Here’s what I now do differently:

I’ve mostly given up cooking for the Boys.

It was causing me way too much grief to have my nice meals rudely rejected, so mostly I allow the Lovely Man make the dinners. If I do cook, it’s something their Dad makes that they’ve had a million times before, or a dessert that they’ve eaten in the past and liked. School lunches, when I make them, are exactly what they had the previous day.

The best thing? I’m not giving anyone a hook to hang their loyalty issues or desire to reject me on.

I now almost never buy little treats or presents for the Boys.

I liked doing it, but I didn’t like being expected to do it or not being thanked, so I stopped.

If, for instance, I decide to go to the fancy deli to buy Boy A’s favourite gourmet jam so he has an extra breakfast option, I don’t mention it, or I let him think the Lovely Man bought it.

It’s not that I don’t want to do nice things for the Boys – I do – it’s that I don’t want the stress of being unhappy with the way they choose to react, or to add to the “pity spoiling” they already get from other family members.

Instead, I aim to be completely present in the time I spend with them, whether that’s wrestling on the floor or helping with their homework.

I play with Boys B and C and hang out when and as much as I feel like.

Generally, we have a play session each day, but if I feel like staying in my bedroom with a book, then I do it without feeling guilty.

And because I’m actually enjoying the time I spend with the younger Boys rather than forcing it, we have more fun. They beg me to come and play now.

I no longer try to include Boy A. He’d be welcome if he wanted to join in, but he never does and I don’t mind at all.

I try to do what I say I will rather than “give in” to be popular.

So last visit I told the Boys they could choose a treat for two days of smooth morning school runs. If both mornings hadn’t ended being smooth, they would not have gotten their treat.

I tell Boy C exactly what time I will read until in the evenings, and it is his job to be in his PJs and in bed with clean teeth before that time. The longer he takes getting ready, the shorter his reading time. I don’t give in to cries of “just a few more minutes!”

Because I said I wouldn’t, that’s why. And I want them to know that I can’t be swayed by begging, pouting or bad behaviour.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Ironically, I’m both happier in myself and more popular with the Boys as a result of my decision to disengage.

There are different approaches to disengaging as a stepparent. Depending on the situation, it may not need to be full-scale, on-strike, you’re-hitchhiking-to-school revolution. But I bet there’s a few things in almost every stepmother’s life that might benefit from a strategic disengagement.

What do you disengage from in your stepfamily?

What could you disengage from?

Self-Care Challenge – Day 7

Ummm, I didn’t walk the dog yesterday.

Bad. Evil. B.

My self-care challenge has been most useful by showing just how much I need to make self-care an active priority. If it’s not actively planned into each day it just doesn’t happen, I’ve found.

And given that we’re about to head interstate for a week with the Boys, becoming aware of the need to plan self-care and getting into the habit of scheduling and doing it before we leave has been good practice for the next few days, when I’ll be in the KidHaus with the chips down and the stakes high.

I think a self-care diary would help me stay on track, even if it’s just a stack of post-it notes on the bedside table. Or maybe I could use my iPhone. Surely there’s an app for that!

Today, for the final day of the challenge, I’m going to bake something yummy with Billie Holiday playing in the background. So soothing!

And (finally) take the dog for a walk.

Thanks to everyone who has followed, commented and been involved in my inaugural Self-Care Challenge Week!

Let’s keep asking ourselves –

What’s one thing I like to do, just for me, that makes me feel good about myself and that I can do today?

The Telephone Diaries

Sometimes I hate the telephone.

After many months of not getting though to the Boys on the phone, and of questioning whether the phone calls are “about him” more than “about the kids” (because who said a parent is allowed to have a need to have contact with his children?) the Lovely Man now has an agreement with the Boys’ Mum that he can speak to the Boys on the phone twice per week on set days.

The phone was a problem in the past.

Days and often even weeks would go past when his many calls and text messages would disappear into the Great Unanswered Void.

Or he’d get through, only to hear his ex laughing heartily in the background as the Boys informed him, one by one, that they didn’t want to talk.

The Boys’ Mum has been very scathing about the Lovely Man’s desire to occasionally have a brief phone conversation with his kids:

Personally, I just don’t see why it matters so much. I don’t feel this need to talk with them all the time when they’re away like you seem to.

For a long time, everything was wrong with his calls.

They were too regular. They weren’t regular enough. They disturbed and disrupted the children. They were at the wrong time when the kids were engaged in other activities. They were too close to bedtime. He was calling too often. He wasn’t calling enough – the kids needed him.

Even now that phone contact is more predictable, it still causes some grief, at least to me.

My heart breaks to hear how grateful the Lovely Man sounds when he gets through to the Boys, or when they call him. I could cry to hear him thanking his own kids for ringing to talk to him.

When they ring, or if he rings them, it seems like everything stops.

If we’re on our way somewhere in the car and the kids call, we stop. Which is ok with me – watching the Lovely Man try to drive on the motorway and give the Boys his full attention on the phone simultaneously is scary.

(It’s not just the kids, either. The world used to grind to a halt when the Boys’ Mum wanted something called, texted or emailed,too.

I’ve seen the Lovely Man stop the car right on the roadway to respond to an SMS from her, not delaying his reply even long enough to pull over onto the verge.

And abandon an entire restaurant meal from before the food arrived until the restaurant closed so she could rail at him they could talk about some school issues, after months of her refusing to speak with him.

But that’s another story. And, to be fair, one that I hope is now mostly finished.)

Even now, though (as happened recently), if the Boys ring at 9pm, even after I’ve spent ages making a beautiful meal and just laid it on the table for him, that’s nonetheless probably the kybosh on dinner.

He took the call, and the Boys talked. And talked. And talked. As the Lovely Man listened, his laksa congealed in the bowl, the prawns rubberised and the concoction I’d spent ninety minutes preparing became cold…. and miserable.

It looked so lonely, sitting there. As lonely and sidelined as I felt.

The call dragged on, with Boy A (in a rare good mood) asking fifty thousand questions about the Lovely Man’s family for a genealogy project he’s doing at school.

(Which stung in itself, given how relentlessly and completely he defines me as a person outside the family. I’m certain he wasn’t asking what daycare centre my pet budgies went to.)

After maybe thirty minutes, I heard the Lovely Man say:

Just a second, Boy A. Just let me call you straight back. I promise I won’t be more than five minutes at most. I’ll just stuff some food down and I’ll be right back with you for as long as you need. Not a moment longer, I guarantee it.

(I’m paraphrasing here.)

As he rushed back to the table with the manic gleam of a man determined to fulfil his promise to his firstborn child by emptying a litre of delicious cold laksa down his hatch in milliseconds, I said

Lovely Man, you are NOT going to shovel my laksa down your throat like disgusting gruel!

No, no, it’s delicious! Delectable! (shovelling it down like disgusting gruel….)

It was more than I could take. I left the table, to a soundtrack of:

Well yes, your third Grandpa on your first once-removed cousin’s side was a coal miner….

All the time I was furiously trying to self-soothe:

Wow, this assignment must be urgent. It has to be due tomorrow to keep Boy A at it for this long. After ten at night, too. He’s just trying to get his work in on time. That’s good, B. That’s a good thing!

But then, to top it all off, I heard the Lovely Man say:

Gosh, Boy A, this sounds like a lot of work. Is it due tomorrow?

[Unintelligible reply]

Oh, two weeks from now. Well, I hope it goes well! Did you say you needed more information about Great Aunt Diamantina’s pet goldfish?

And so it went on. For what felt like hours but was probably only forty-five minutes all up.

The thing is, I really am so glad that the Lovely Man is now getting to speak with his Boys in between visits. And I’m glad that Boy A, the apple of his eye, was actually talking to him for a change instead of being rejecting or pointedly cheerleading for Team Mummy, as has more often been the case lately.

It is so hard for the Lovely Man, missing the Boys, and until recently he hasn’t even given himself proper permission to want to talk to them regularly, due to his concern that he might have been selfishly foisting his own agenda about phone conversations onto them.

An unfortunate side effect of Boy A’s rejecting behaviours, though, is that the Lovely Man would be uncomfortable, for instance, explaining that he’s just sat down to his dinner and asking if he could call back in fifteen minutes after he’s finished. If one of the Boys wants help with his homework right now, then right now is when he will get it.

Kid says jump, Dad says “how high?” parenting is a common complaint from stepmums whose partners are experiencing the dreaded Daddy Guilts. And when these dads’ kids reject them, in ways big or small, it becomes so much more difficult for them to do anything other than be one hundred percent “on” during the times when the kids are seeking them out. Whatever else is happening at the time.

As Wednesday Martin says, quoting Dr. Patricia Papernow, one of the key dissonances for stepmothers is feeling rejected, exhausted, and unappreciated  by the same kids that their partners feel loved, nurtured and supported by.

I would add to this, that one of the key stresses for stepmothers can be feeling angry and protective at their stepkids’ hostility toward their partners, even when that hostility has abated and their partners feel accepted and embraced by their kids once more.

We may feel that the “tap turns off/tap turns on” aspect of our stepchildrens’ relationship with their Dad “shouldn’t” bother us if it doesn’t bother our partner, knowing that the parent/child dyad can generally absorb these ups and downs fairly seamlessly, but it’s still hard to draw a veil over yesterdays’ hurtful behaviour towards the man we love just because today’s behaviour is better.

Overall, there are many aspects of last night’s phone call scenario that make me happy – the more regular schedule, the Lovely Man’s increased happiness, Boy A’s preparedness to chat. I recognise them. So please, don’t lecture me about being selfish. (I don’t need it, I do such a good job of beating myself up.)

I just felt so sorry for the poor, neglected laksa, that’s all.

Tell me, though, is your family phone using its powers for good or evil?

Thankyou. Thankyou. Thankyou again!!!

Thanks so much to Peggy from The Stepmom’s Tool Box for awarding Stepmum Of The Year the Best Blog Award.

It means a lot coming from you, Peggy, and it also means a lot to be receiving it in the company of blogstars like Wednesday Martin, Jacquelyn Fletcher, Jennifer Newcomb and Izzy Rose (whose books I own to the last woman!).

Now, to business:

My solemn duty as a Best Blog Award recipient is to nominate my fifteen (fifteen! eeek!) most read blogs.

As newish blogger, I’m kind of unsure about the etiquette of awards. Ideally it would be nice to spread the love more widely and avoid awarding the blogs that Peggy awarded, but I’d be lying if I didn’t replicate just a little.

Wednesday Martin, whose book, Stepmonster, saved my life when this story was oh-so-new and oh-so-scary. Even the reader comments on her blog rock!

The Wicked Stepmom, who writes with such humour and grace about being anything but wicked.

Becoming A Stepmom. Jacquelyn Fletcher’s Stepmom Circles podcasts are absolutely required listening when I’m commuting to work.

Fools Rush In. Jacob’s recent post on Measuring A Stepmarriage in Dog Years is a scream. A true scream. Enough said.

Jennifer Newcomb Marine and Carol Marine, author/bloggers at No One’s The Bitch. Their book was the first place I turned when the Boys’ Mum said she wanted to meet me for the Very First Time.

A Touch Of The Crazy, and not only because her 10 things never to say to a stepmother post should be syndicated onto the sides of buses.

21st Century Stepdad Man. I love hearing about stepfamily life from a bloke’s point of view. Especially thoughtful ones with such fabulous turns of phrase.

There are lots of other fantastic stepmother blogs I read each day, but many are either password only, or the content is fairly personal, so I’m loathe to send links their way.

My other favourite bloggy morsels include:

The Sartorialist. I once read a confession on PostSecret that went something like “Every single morning when I get dressed, I ask myself whether The Sartorialist would photograph me in my outfit.” Not being a sensible shoes type, I can relate.

Making Things Up for the rough and tumble plus giggles of life with kids.

Dooce, of course. I’m reading in the hope she’ll spill the beans on how her baby’s eyes got so damn blue.

A Dress A Day. Check out the Secret Lives of Dresses series if you’ve ever wondered what your frocks are saying to each other about you.

Peter Black’s Freedom To Differ for a bit of politico-legal-media bite with breakfast. I don’t agree with all you say, Peter, but I often chuckle at your special way of saying it.

Kitchen Retro for some “pop culture retrospectacular” action. The toast wheelbarrows may be the silliest piece of food frippery I’ve ever seen.

Tales of the Read Headed Devil Child. I first came across Nikki through her post 10 things you probably shouldn’t say to a teenage mum, but kept reading because I so admire her feistiness. If I’d been a teenage mum I would have been a pathetic mousy little thing, quailing before societal disapproval; I love that she speaks up strong.

Pithy & Cleaver. I’m planning to make the Chewy Ginger Cookies with Cardamom and Black Pepper…. well, not this weekend maybe, but Sometime Soon.

Thanks again, Peggy!

The Mantra

There’s clearly something for me to learn from a recent post from Kimi at So Many Kids, So Little Time about it being ok to resort to aggro-saving communication formulas when dealing with kids.

All you real mums have no doubt built up an instinctive understanding of this fact.

Me, till now? Not so much.

Currently, my Lovely Man is in the habit of asking the kids what they want for dinner. Noooooo!

It always ends in the great debate, them all getting pissed if they each don’t get their favourite food, and me feeling like a short order cook.

As Joel Schwartzberg discusses in his book, The Forty Year Old Version: Humoirs of a Divorced Dad, mealtimes with kids are much more manageable if the emphasis is “dinner” not “diner”.

Dinner not diner. Dinner not diner. Dinner not diner.

It’s fast becoming my mealtime mantra.

Looking back on my childhood, I remember that if we asked Mum what was going to be for dinner, the answer was, invariably, a chirpy “Something nice!”

It drove me mental as a kid, but Now. I. Get. It.

What’s your mealtime mantra?