Misunderstood: The Blended Family Edition.

Now that school is in full session, we've hit that inevitable time where the friendships are new, fresh and exciting. Miss M would like a playdate every day, please and thank you. T is more content with the neighborhood gang and if all else fails we can let the dialing begin.

It's also sometimes a time I dread.

It's not that I don't like the playdates and the fun that is had when things are set up, it's that the explanation and the questions and the figuring gets tiring.

"Hold on, A, can my mom talk to your mom?" M says into the phone and I grimace. I don't know A's mom and A's mom doesn't know me. Now I have to make friends and explain our lovely set up.

"Hi, I'm Samara, I'm M's stepmom." I always say. I've learned it's best to clarify from the get-go but even then it seems some people miss it.

"No, that day M will be at her mom's so that won't work but you could always call her mom to set something up." I explain. "Or we could plan something another day."

There is the inexplicable feeling I get right then as if I need to explain even though I don't get to.
The schedule. The homes. The parents.

And even the simple fact that we all get along.

It's as if I need to prove to these miscellaneous parents that we are good people, our kids are good people and please, please don't judge us.

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I know that L has felt this too. Sometimes someone will assume I am T and M's mom and then they'll see her with the kids and act confused, as if they don't understand.

It's as if we all need name tags explaining who is who.

Just recently at 'Mom's and Muffins', one of the moms that I had met and set up some playdates for M with was there and ignored L and seemed genuinely confused. Though I had told her I was M's stepmom and I had even mentioned that I wouldn't be at 'Mom's and Muffins.' (I'm kind of holding out for Stepmoms and Starbucks. I'll let you know when it happens.)

What do we do with that? Do we hand out disclaimers? And when did people become so closeminded? Or is it that we are just sensitive to our own situation?

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Today, I was a chaperone on Miss M's field trip and she was elated. She told me last night that she was most excited for her friends to see me and my growing belly because some of them didn't believe her that soon there will be four kids in our house.

When I walked in the class, one of her little friends ran over and I assumed that there'd be questions about the coming baby, but instead; "Is it true that M has two moms?"

At this point the other chaperone has looked me up and down. I am sure she is thinking that we're one of those families. Which probably makes my bulging baby belly seem even more confusing.

"Yes, it's true." I tell the girl who runs back to her desk with a look of astonishment.

When will we no longer be a museum exhibit? I wonder.

Again, my instinct is to walk over to the other chaperone and explain myself and our situation, but I don't. I waited until later and asked her who her child was and then shared that M was my stepdaughter. Even then, it didn't seem she got it.

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We have encountered all sorts of parents along the way. The ones who choose one house and one set of parents to talk to. The ones who we set up a playdate with and then never hear from again. The ones who make certain assumptions about me or about L or about J or about L's husband.

And the ones, that little handful, that seem to get it and accept us for who we are.

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At the end of all this, years and years down the road, when T and M are graduated, and married, and parents themselves, I hope that we can look back and say, we parents and co-parents, did a mighty fine job, regardless of what anyone else said or didn't say. Regardless of the looks, the questions, the ignorance we so often meet.

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So what is my point of all these random thoughts and points? To the critics and the ones who don't understand, I just want them to know that we've come along way together already, I can only imagine how much farther we can go.