Wicked Wicked Stepmother

“But I don’t want to have a stepmother!  They are all MEAN!” Cried Super-girl as Mi Hombre and I shared the news that we are planning a future together.  Talk about a heart wrenching reality to see through the eyes of a child from divorce.  She was so paralyzed by fear of the stereotype that comes with the label stepmother.   She even thought of ME…the woman she squeezes with all her might and says “I LUB you!” to as possibly turning MEAN if I married her father and became her stepmother.  All I could think of was, ”Thanks a lot Disney! Thanks for making my adjustment to stepmotherhood that much more trivial.”

We wiped the tears and held her tight.  It wasn’t long, Super-girl came around…”Will you marry me too!”  she would say with excitement…”Now hold up kid, don’t rush it, you have to get engaged first!” I would say.  Laughing at how quickly she adjusted to the idea that I wasn’t a wicked witch incognito.

God Help Me, What Have I gotten Myself into?

I would never have conceived in my wildest dreams that I would find myself an independent career woman jumping into the stickiness of a ready-made family. “God help me, what have I gotten myself into?” I say it over and over as if I still haven’t come to terms with the idea. It feels at times so surreal and foreign to me.

I find myself wondering how I have gone from romantic candle-lit dinners to carpooling and endless mountains of laundry. Whatever happened to dessert and coffee before an X-rated nightcap? Now the only nightcap we seem to get are bedtime stories and falling-tree hugs.  Don’t get me wrong it is very endearing… But come on! Really? Somebody pinch me!   Have I actually morphed into Insta-mom? —fully equipped with a soon-to-be  shiny new Hubby and my very own sassy and needy 5-year-old daughter.

Initially, I was such a proactive wanna-be-mommy determined and hell bent on abolishing the evil connotation that comes with the label stepmother. I am going to be different…because after all I am different! I thought it would be easy, Super-girl likes me…hell she even Loves me!  I had no worries until reality bitch–slapped me in the face…I met her “mom.”

Online Dating? Oh no, not ME!

If life hadn’t dealt me a consistent ragged flop of cards I would have failed to see the humor in finding the love of my life through an online dating site.  What are the odds?  Leave it to me a not once, but twice married single gal hell bent on staying that way to stumble upon, when least expected, a magnificent wonder of a gent. So, naturally I convinced myself as they say (just who are they anyway?) that, “The third time’s the charm!”

It all innocently started (at work) when a couple of girls decided that it was time for me to get my feet wet in the ocean of dating. Not so much that I wanted to date…More importantly as a filler to help the long and sometimes drawn out night shift pass more quickly.  To my chagrin the words that I live by, “life is simple…Just me, my dogs and my garden” had to go.  It was unanimous; the only way for a homebody recluse such as myself to meet someone would be to “check out” the cyber world of online dating.

Now for those of you who may not be familiar with this type of  stay at home dating it is a virtual buffet of men…or women, whatever suits your fancy. Just “wink” and let the fun begin! To me it was more like a buffet of shallowness… This online dating community went against the natural fiber of my being to not (always) judge a book by its cover…we judged and thought aloud he is G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S! or NOT!  After many night shifts spent gawking at hundreds of nameless faces on my computer screen…Alas Mi Hombre!

Now I confess that it isn’t as simple as that, choose a face and then say I do, forever and ever amen.  It was a process. That face on the computer screen although very appealing to the eye, had one (normally) red flag…a daughter.

In spite of my apprehension I decided to put on my big girl panties and bravely chanted to myself a new mantra, “I will do it all for L-O-V-E!“  Thinking simultaneously to myself, “What the heck, it can’t be anything worse that what I have experienced already”…so I thought.