We were talking about blended families today and I ended up getting up and drawing it on the board. It made me think of what I include as family.

First I have myself

I just got Married in November so I have started my own family 

I have my Dad and Ralyn as well as Cindy and David as my in-laws

Originally my family was just us four 

We've grown a bit. So for those who are keeping count 4 sister in-laws (three my husbands sisters which is all of his family besides parents), 2 brother in-laws, 1 best friend, 3 biological siblings, 3 adopted siblings, 3 step siblings in the picture and 3 step siblings out of the picture, 1 sister in-law and 5 (1 in heaven) parents not in this picture .  Grand total of  25 in my family, 14 in my immediate family with out marriages, 10 more added on because of marriages and 1in heaven.




Yes, it is complicated to answer questions about my family. 

One of the hard things is not understanding where you place is. It is easy to get lost in such a big family, especially when we all have so much baggage to go with it. I really worry about my family. I worry it wont work when I despicably want it to. We talk of the statistics of a blended family and that half the time they don't make it. It been 2 years since they got married and things have been crazy. It felt good to hear in class that  blended families should 1. wait at least 2 years for normalcy (mine might need a bit longer) 2. have bio parents do the heavy parenting (which is done) 3. make step parents more like a good uncle or aunt (getting closer on that) and 4. conferencing together (  think this is getting better but really I don't know because I am not part of that. Which is how it should be). Really we are on the right track our track just happens to be more like a hot wheels race track than a train track. But that is okay, it doesn't mean we can't be a family or that we won't make it. It just means more work. 

VS