Happy Mother's (and Stepmother's) Day

This year makes my third mother's day living with Shiloh(13) Bradley(11) and Alan (sworn to secrecy!). Although I still can't claim the complete motherhood experience--they were half grown, & able to dress, wipe & feed themselves by the time we met--in honor of the holiday, here is my top ten list of Stepmom moments!

10. Early after moving in I found Bradley in his room happily cutting a piece of fabric into strips. On closer inspection, turns out it was one of my Lands End luxury flannel monogrammed pillowcases. It was part of a lovely set. His reason? He decided he wanted to "make something out of it".

9. Easter last year--after waiting a few respectable days past the holiday, I started eating the easter eggs the kids had colored. Who doesn't love boiled eggs? You should have heard the wailing when this was discovered. Turns out, when kids spend hours dying, drawing on & customizing eggs, they DON'T want you to eat them. Then they counted & figured out i'd eaten more of one's eggs than the others, which led to another round of wailing. My question is, just what did they think we were going to DO with them?

8. A few months ago I took my stepdaughter shopping for an evening. As we pulled out in the car she chirped "This is so exciting! This is girl-on-girl night!" Oops. Try explaining that one.

7. Easter this year--while easter egg hunting at his Grandma's house, Bradley found a cute little brown snake in the long grass down by the creek. He grabbed it & dropped it in his Easter basket, where it slithered down and hid in the Easter grass and eggs. Did I mention it was a lovely coppery shade of brown? Ah, what FUN we had separating him from the other children, & then from the basket, & then the snake from the eggs. Good times!

6. My first summer here I watched the kids for the beginning of spring break. I had one of those suspiciously quiet moments when I knew I needed to go check on them. I walked out into the back yard & saw 9-year old Bradley standing on the ROOF, BAREFOOT. My heart nearly stopped. One of his toys had gotten stuck & he decided to go get it himself. The first thing he could think of to say was "uhhh, my dad lets me do this all the time."

5. One day Bradley got impatient while waiting for me or Alan to help him use the hot glue gun. He wanted to make a bird feeder & that couldn't wait. He decided to take matters into his own hands, & heated up the glue stick in the TOASTER. He's very creative, that kid. Good for the birds, bad if you want to make toast though.

4. Shiloh can whine sometimes in the way only an indignant 13 year old can. Before Easter she kept asking if we were going to hunt Easter eggs. I told her I didn't know, but she & her brother could hide them for each other if they wanted. Apparently she didn't like this, because she puffed up like a blowfish, got really huffy, & said "Well that's the whole POINT of Easter is that you get to hunt eggs. Otherwise, why bother??" Oh no--does this mean I have to take these kids to church?! Pardon the expression, but i'd rather drive nails up my arms.

3. Remember my story about lending Bradley my Jimmy Buffet CD for him & his little buddies to listen to? Unfortunately I forgot there was a song on there called "Why Don't We Get Drunk & Screw." Oops!

2. This year for St. Patrick's Day Bradley's school had a "wear green" day. The night before, Alan caught him in the bathroom w/the green food coloring from the kitchen trying to "dye his eyebrows green". The funny part is, even caught "green-handed" w/the food coloring, he still tried to deny that he was doing anything.

1. After the many, MANY talks we've had w/Bradley about not ever touching candles, matches, lighters, or the gas stove, in which he SWORE compliance... This morning I woke up to the smell of breakfast cooking. He got up before anyone else, & decided to make pancakes with the GAS stove. I'll be damned if he didn't do it, too--pancakes, eggs & sausage. He said he knew he wasn't supposed to, but wanted to surprise everyone since it was mother's day. I lectured him as best I could while stuffing pancakes into the other side of my mouth.

xoxo & happy Mother's Day to all!

Layla