The Extra Mama

Nearly four years ago I had the honor of meeting Kelsey, Tony's daughter. I also met his son, but this blog is about Kelsey. The first night we met she was excited and very welcoming. She was happy to show me around their house and walked me into each room. She grabbed my hand and acted like she had known me her whole life. A couple weeks later I was ready to introduce Amber to them. The girls hit it off instantly and cried when they had to leave each other for the night. It was all very sweet.

A few short months later, Tony and I decided to get married. We really couldn't stand being apart from each other and were so completely exhausted running between each other's homes every night after work and then driving back home late at night. The kids thought it would be super. They would have time to play together all the time and would never have to leave, except for every other weekend.

We married about 3 months after that and then the cookie began to crumble. Kelsey became emotional, argumentative, and down right unbearable at times. She had a jealousy towards Amber because she was able to see her dad (who lives 20 minutes away) more than Kelsey was seeing her mother (who lives 2 hours away). Amber visits her dad once during the week and every Friday night. Some weekends she stays through until Sunday. Kelsey only sees her mom every other weekend, nothing extra. I didn't realize at first she was comparing her visitations between the other parents, I thought she just didn't really like me and was blaming me for her world changing.

After about a year, I finally realized that she would get extremely emotional if she hadn't heard from her mom for more than a couple of days. It finally clicked and I mentioned it to Tony. Well, of course he goes nutso on his ex-wife and that didn't accomplish a thing. There really isn't any sort of good communication between them. I decided that I was going to speak with her, mom-to-mom. It helped, she calls mostly every night and checks in with them to see how they are doing and see about their day at school. She still doesn't live any closer. This really bothers Kelsey.

She has told me on several occasions that she wishes her parents were still together. She would rather have them together and miserable than apart and happy because she doesn't like having to split her time between the two of them. Now, I know the child loves me, and probably admires me more than her biological mother, but the first time she told me she wanted them back together I was extremely insulted.

We have really struggled with our relationship and her growing up and maturing, turning into a young lady is helping us quite a bit. She is a delightful girl, very creative and inventive (to a fault at times), loving and tries to be extremely helpful. She is also very independent, knows what she thinks, believes it, owns it and needs to be convinced she is wrong or she will not believe you. These traits remind me, of me.

There are several times during a week or sometimes a day that I will hear her say something or see her do something that reminds me of myself as a child. I find that to be crazy, I mean, I didn't MAKE her, so why is she like me? She is almost identical to her daddy, except for the important girl parts. If you see her with Tony's sister, Dayna without make up, they look like mother and daughter. She is like a little clone. I know this physical traits make it easier for me to love her since when I look at her I can see my husband.

She has come a long way from that mean little six-year-old. She is thankful for meals, snacks and even the new brush I bought her the other day. She doesn't yell at me anymore and tell me I ruined her entire summer. She even lets the other kids know that they will get used to me. What does that mean? Am I that bad? Amber sort of looks at her like, OK??? Get used to my mommy? haha! That's funny. She even told Tony this the other day. He was being loud and slamming cabinets in the kitchen while Wesley was napping. I asked him to quiet down and he knew I was kidding, but she didn't so she let him know that he could get used to it. haha!

Kelsey does have a nice mom, but we are very different. She is less organized, less attentive to details like wearing sunscreen and making sure the kids have enough water when they are out on a hot day to avoid heat exhaustion. Yes, this has happened. She is late every single time she has to pick them up or bring them home and she doesn't call. But mostly, she lives too far away from her children. That I don't understand. All of her other "issues" are easily explained, except the latter. I mean, what mother doesn't want to see her children each day as they grow? Does she realize what she is missing? Maybe not.

Kelsey struggles with this. She asks me why I don't let Amber live with her dad. How do you answer that without making the other parent look bad? I already know, extremely carefully. I really hate having to make excuses for a person that I don't love. When you love someone it is so much easier to find reasons for what they are doing wrong.

Finally, after more emotional episodes, I finally had to tell her that she needs to stop paying attention to the negative in her life and focus on the positive. She has a nice home, with a sister and two brothers. She has a dad that did everything he could to ensure that he was with her each and every day of her childhood. He wanted to watch her grow, he wanted to be there for her and he made it happen. Nothing was going to stop him from accomplishing that task. He wanted to raise his kids. She has dogs and friends, a nice school, and of course, she has me, her Tonya. She is the only person in the house that calls me Tonya. Amber and Justin call me mommy, Tony calls me Foxy and Wesley doesn't call me anything.

As time has gone by, I realize that Tony and Kelsey were always meant to be mine, but they just took a wrong turn before they found me. They both needed me to come along and take care of them. He was trying so hard to make everything happen and keep the kids happy that he wasn't happy. Kelsey was struggling with the fact that she only had 1/4 of a mom. I wonder why, why a child is born to one parent only to be raised by another person, not their biological parent, but a parent nonetheless.

I know that I am a better parent than her mom could ever be because I come last. My husband, my children, my dogs and my house come first. I get whatever happens to be left over. Sometimes it isn't much and other times it is 45 minutes of a walk and a 15 minute shower.

Since Amber was a small girl I would go into one of her new coloring books and color a picture for her and then sign it. She always would smile at the surprise of seeing it. When she started to write and had notebooks I started making notes for her to find by surprise. Last week, for the first time, I did this for Kelsey. I don't think she has found it yet, but I am sure she will let me know when she does happen to see it. The only trouble I had was signing it... For Amber I just sign it, Love, Mommy. For Kelsey, I had a hard time. I know my name, but it didn't feel right. I wrote "Love, Tonya," but tore it out and rewrote the note:

Hello Dear Kelsey,

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Love, Your Extra Mama :)