Blending Families

As I stated in my introduction, my family is a blended family.  My husband and I have been married for almost a year, and my daughter are the products of my first marriage, which lasted about 11 years.  I was a military/government wife, and funny enough, my hubby also works for "the man."

When I first met my now husband, he was leery of dating a woman with a child, let alone two kids.  But, after getting to know, and fall in love with me, and I with him....it came time for him to meet my girls. 

I think he fell in love with them even faster than he did with me.  My girls are pretty darn well behaved, because I have always had that expectation of them, even through the divorce.  I never slacked off out of feeling guilty of their family falling apart.  On the contrary, I looked at it like this, it is my OBLIGATION to my kids to keep the same consistency in their lives as much as possible.  They had the same rules, same bedtime, same routine. 

I feel like too many people nowadays let their kids run the show.  They do not instill discipline in them.  I have never laid a hand on my kids.  I use time outs and then I talk to them, and make them follow-up afterwards with an apology, and reparations for their actions. 

If one of my daughters says something mean to the other, they will get warned, talked to, and if they do it again, they go to their room where they are to sit and wait for me....not play with toys, sit there.  I talk to them about what they said, or did, and then they are to apologize for what they did, and make sure the other one is okay. 

My girls are learning to use their voices to communicate their needs, wants, opinions, ideas, etc.  If they have a problem with a friend, I advise them to talk directly to the friend!  If something happens, confront the situation head on, not in a negative way, but directly. 

It has not been easy to blend our family, every day is a work in progress, but I think we would all agree that it has gone as smoothly as it could have possibly gone considering all the circumstances involved.  Now, we just have to adjust to adding a baby to the mix, no big thing, right?!?!

Do you have a blended family?  Please feel free to share your experiences!!  Ask questions, lend advice to me, or others reading....use your voice!