Weekend Report

I made it through the weekend without losing my cool, as promised. To be fair, my kids didn't make it especially difficult, so I can't take too much credit. The biggest challenge didn't have to do with me responding to the kids' emotions, but rather my other weakness: the stress that comes from trying to do too much in too little time. For reasons that are too boring to explain, on Friday night I ended up needing to get my kids to eat dinner quickly at my mom's house, get them back to my house, get them ready for bed, put P. Bibby in bed and get S-Boogie and Little Dude watching a movie with the Kent kids, then drive half an hour to pick up my car from the mechanic in Middletown, all within a little over an hour. To use a metaphor my ex-mother-in-law is fond of, trying to get children to do anything efficiently is like herding kittens. Typically this turns me into Angry Dad, but I managed to stay relatively calm on Friday--mostly because I knew I'd promised my blog I'd do so, and one simply does not break promises made to one's blog.

The rest of the weekend went pretty smoothly. Yesterday morning my kids played well with their cousins while I did the Color Run in Metropolis, they had a fun time feeding ducks with the Kent kids in the afternoon, and we managed to get all seven kids bathed and in bed last night without too much trouble. This morning Clark made pancakes for everyone, and the kids went to church with their moms.

And since this post is already all over the place, a list of things I particularly enjoyed about the weekend:

• That I was able to leave my kids at home with Clark on Friday night while I went to pick up my car. It's nice having someone to help. 
• That Little Dude and Charles really seemed to have a good time together. The three older girls have gotten along great from the beginning and the little girls play together as much as toddlers ever play together, but Little Dude isn't as social as his sisters are, and Charles is two years younger than him, so for a long time they didn't really play together. They've become very close lately, though, which is nice because neither of them has a brother. I'm glad they each get to have a "brother," even if it's only for a couple days every other week. 
• That I went upstairs this morning to get P. Bibby dressed, and found that Wisp had already taken care of it. It was sweet of her to help without being asked, and it's always nice to have extra help with the little ones.

Overall, I'm just happy to see all of the kids getting along. Stepfamilies can be difficult. Perhaps another benefit of our current arrangement is that no one has told the kids they're in a stepfamily. No one has told them they need to act like siblings or stepsiblings or whatever, so they get to define their relationships themselves. And thankfully, the relationships they're defining make for a pleasant home environment for us all.

The Kent-Fob family weekend: Kind of like when the Avengers and the Justice League get together, but with less fighting (and only two super-hot men flexing their muscles)