Nightmare on Stepmom Street: 5 Tricks for Making Shared Holidays a Treat! By Laura S. Milam, MEd
When I decided to marry a man with a daughter and an ex-wife, I knew that the holidays would be a challenge. Besides the normal pull to divide time between the in-laws, we would have the complication of custody—splitting whole weeks or groups of days between two parents.
I expected Thanksgiving and Christmas to be crazy. But nothing prepared me for the terror of Halloween.
Isabelle’s mom loves Halloween. I think it’s her favorite holiday. So, figuring out a schedule that works for everyone and makes everyone happy? Tricky. Like bobbing-for-apples- while-avoiding-the-germs-of-27-other-head-bobbers tricky.
Our first Halloween was a nightmare. Isabelle was scheduled to get ready for trick-or-treating at our house. I’d brought home a goodie bag filled with spooky pencils, rings, erasers and an activity book along with some very tasty Halloween cupcakes. Initially she was excited.
When her mom showed up early to take her out, there was no time left for me to help Isabelle with makeup, as originally planned. Mom brought with her a very large, very fancy, individually-packaged cupcake. Isabelle saw it and her eyes nearly popped out of her head. All thoughts of the cupcakes I’d brought home for us were gone.
She only had eyes for the one from Mom. My evening sort of deteriorated from there.
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