This past weekend was the first time RockCrawlinChef had spent the weekend at my house. Despite being engaged, we still maintain two separate households. Taking on an entire family can be daunting and I'd rather we ease into it as much as possible. Maybe "ease" isn't the right word after this weekend.
I scheduled a Drop-in Crop at the school for staff and students on Saturday, long before I knew it was Rocky's Homecoming, and, being the hostess, I couldn't ditch the crop to help out with the kids. I had asked RCC a few weeks ago if he would be willing to cook the kids' dinner rather than having them go out and he agreed readily. Not only did he cook dinner for Digger, Digger's girlfriend, and his friend, Haak, he took Monster to the skatepark and the mall, helped Ashee-butt with a last-minute dress adjustment and dropped the kids off at the dance. I've never had someone in my life so willing to help out and happy to spend time with the kids. It was good for all of us. In all fairness, my brother Junior was also a huge help; he picked up the kids and drove them all out to Ault to RCC's place for dinner. But Junior is my brother; until now, I always had to rely on my parents or siblings to help shuttle the kids around. It's an entirely new experience to have RCC embrace the role of step-dad so completely.
This weekend wasn't all roses, it had its ups and downs. Any household with three teenagers will have that, but Jay weathered it like a pro, and having him around was a stabilizing influence for me and the kids.
We're not married yet, and won't be for several months, but the kids have already started to refer to him as their step-dad and he proudly refers to them as his step-kids. After this weekend, any doubts I had about how well our "new" family would get along are gone. My biggest fear with merging our two households is not whether or not the kids and RCC will get along, but how well our dogs will get along...but that's a story for another time.
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