A Joyful Place Called Home

Archive for the ‘The Berrys’ Category

I had an interesting time with my son, 16, this week.  You see he’s of the go-go-go group.  Each day they have fishing afterschool, hanging out to do a chore together, or some other activity planned as often as I’ll let him go.  The last three weeks we’ve been home alone together as his sister has been at his grandparents and his Step dad deployed to Afghanistan.

The fun news….

He has been home almost every day for long periods of time despite it being summer.  Why? Because he’s enjoying time alone with Mom. We’ve cooked for his friends, we’ve had movie nights, we’ve had a water war or three in the backyard, we’ve taken our labs to the river to run…good times.

You see, it turns out that even a soon to be seventeen year old covets being with Mom…but of course child union rules prohibit that from being announced….but coming home from the second of two ten hour drives the other day after football camp….he broke the rules…”Mom, its been great spending time alone together….I’ve really enjoyed it”

I managed to not go off the road ….

Our children want us to be parents, want us to participate in their lives, want to know us

Are you making sure yours gets time with you?

Today we celebrate our eighth anniversary. Like most marriages, it is not the fairy tale day that we often wish for….Dh is in Afghanistan…I am in Alabama…not exactly the romantic dinner and date I had hoped for….I am sure not the one Les hoped for either…A blended family takes time to become cohesive.  After all we took two entirely different sets of children, cultures, expectations and histories and put them under one roof. We added deployments to war zones, teenage hormones, and two very much in love adults…..full time jobs, extended family illnesses…..things that real life is made of, but through it all I have had the strength of knowing that Les and I committed our marriage to God…that God restored our families and allowed us to find a new life together….

We are especially thankful this day for extended families and for the children’s other parents. We have not always seen everything through the same lenses, but we all kept trying to, and despite really difficult times and the best of times, our lives are made better by our decisions to keep the children first….after our lives together failed.

I am married to the most incredible man.  A man who loves me and our children dearly…who tolerates more than i can imagine with a fly by the seat of her pants kinda wife who is thrilled every day when he comes through the door at home….

and I look so very forward to his return from Afghanistan to do just that….

Happy Anniversary Les Berry….I do so love you!

At our home summer means that the children are going to be traveling to see their other parents.  Our paperwork states six weeks is to be spent in another state, and if we don’t agree to the dates, its the first six weeks of summer.  As little children six weeks was a very very long time to change households. We divorced when the children were very young, so letting a child go for six weeks was pretty tough. We recognized very early on that it probably needed to be adjusted and so we did.  We work very hard to work with both sides of our children’s families. The grandparents are very important to us as well as our children’s need for both families to know and spend time with them.

As teenagers it seems that the tightrope gets higher. Youth camps, work, sports and friendships mean that often teens don’t want to go for six weeks at a time. I feel strongly that they need time with their dad as well, but costs are prohibitive to travel them cross country multiple times. This summer we staggered when our 13 and 16 year old go to another state.  Their summer options and trips meant that 3 weeks was much more to everyone’s needs being met including their other parents. To be there three weeks with a break of a week or more at home meant that everyone could recover and at the same time have long enough to relax between another three weeks later in the summer.  Many parents I know have found this to be helpful or to break it up in to two weeks and two weeks followed by two weeks with weeks at the residential parents in between.

When the children were smaller it felt like I was always the “give” on the schedules that conflicted.  I understood I had the children all the time, but I also had the school hours, sleep hours and weekends they were often with their dad.  It is important for each family to have the fun times, vacation times, and down times as well as the parenting times of homework, etc. It felt like my side was heavy on the responsibility, his side was heavy on the fun.

As mine are now reaching college, I hear them saying the fun things they did with Dad, but they are indeed remembering the closeness of Mom….My belief is that there is enough in our children’s hearts to allow all of us to love them….and they will only be benefitted when we allow them to love us all!

So glad you found us!  We’re Les & Sweetie Berry, a blended family of almost eight years now!  Les is currently deployed in Afghanistan, but we know where the real war is….raising the teenagers!  Our oldest two are now in college and our oldest is married and on her own, our teenagers are 16 and 13.  They are my original children , though we consider all of our children ours.  Technically the older two were biologically Les’s the younger two my own.

Are you in a step family? Do you feel overwhelmed or simply without support.  Come along.  The hardest part is isolation sometimes, so join us for resources, fun chats on Twitter, and every now and then workshops or seminars (free!)  Les and I work with organizations and ministries to help facilitate the needs of families like our own.  Everything from the legal awareness of custody pick ups to simply including more lines for emails.  Step and Blended families have some very special needs to overcome some of the stresses of coordinating households, we help to share best found hints as we go!

Welcome!

Sweetie