by Heather Hogan

Created on: February 19, 2009   Last Updated: February 21, 2009

The hardest task in my life at the moment is trying to figure out how to make my blended family work. Mark and I have been together for four years now. Our children have been together for two. We kept the children apart until we knew we wanted to be with each other forever. I never planned on my children meeting another man unless I knew it was the one. Divorce is hard enough on children without me putting my children on a ferris wheel,with each stop at the bottom having another Joe waiting to say, "Hey, do you want to play ball?"

I don't think about marriage again. Maybe one day I will. Divorce left a very bitter taste in my mouth. Kind of like rotten egg nogg, but not just swallowing the moldy drink, but gargling it for minutes, then swallowing and gagging until I just want to keel over and die. I do not want to go through that again.

So here we are, we have five children, three are mine and two are his. I have a sixteen year old daughter and boys that are eight and twelve. Mark has two girls twelve and nine. The kids adore each other, actually LOVE each other, and the kids love us. It is like one big playdate for them every Wednesday, Thursday and every other weekend. Our trips to Tahoe and Disneyland have been magnificent. We play tag, baseball, soccer, football, I bike ride with the kids all the time, we watch movies together, and are truly a family.

Here is the problem; Mark and I parent completely differently! I am carefree, he is strict, I am not the neatest person, he is a neat freak, I don't have a problem with kids wrestling in the house (I wrestle them), he does, Cade forgets to flush his latest bowel movement, Mark has a heart attack, scooters and bikes don't always get put away when they come in, I say "I am sure when they are adults they will remember to put their bikes and scooters away before dinner!" Basically, I have two boys, that are all boy, and he has two girls that are nice and quiet.

We go back and forth on punishments and what is acceptable. I will admit, my boys can get loud and obnoxious at inappropriate times. But I am always there to say, "Knock it off!" This is said of course, with my pointer finger on their nose right between their eyes with my teeth being held together so tight I get a headache, and let's not forget my mouth is a slit with the words coming through in such a frightening manner they step back and knock off whatever they are doing. These incidences are far and few between.

I choose my hills to die on. I won't go to

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