I have been reminded as of late that family takes on all shapes and sizes. In a global society we truly are one people full of seven degrees of separation, (often less) and many many Kevin Bacon moments.

All this has brought back in to focus for me the term family. Whether it be “traditional”, friends as close as family or the family we all create for ourselves and find on our journey in life there is no “correct” answer. I am reminded of my own blended family, whom I cherish, and it got me reminisicing about my wedding day. The following is my wedding short “film” from almost five years ago. The fillmaker I hired REFUSED to let his work be called a wedding video. I look back and watch and smile,  I was becoming a new Wife and Stepmom determined to do the right thing and so very nervous.  My husband’s name is Ettore Ravazzolo. People hear his first name and think it is his last, so I tease that I became Mrs. Ettore.

The day was Sactown HOT at 112 degrees and only Ettore can pull off a seafood bar in 110 degree heat. I really wanted to combine American culture with Ettore’s Swiss background, look for the HUGE wheel of Swiss Cheese that took three people to carry, the yodeler for the Swiss influence and then me rocking the mic later in the video to Tina Turner.

It was a great day despite Ettore and I being deathly ill and me having a stress attack and mis-placing the wedding rings one hour before the ceremony…”Oh my God, need to calm down…I need to seriously CHILL OUT…I lost the rings…I lost the rings.” An eternal nod of gratitude to my friend Kristy Osborne for not only telling me to chill out, but she also found my rings and did my hair. Thanks sista’.

We’ve all come a long way baby. Here’s is to family!

“YES, it is raining today!  I feel like I can finally breathe.  Sunshine tears!”

My husband Ettore  thinks I am weird…I think  Summer is God’s little clue of what hell would be like.

It is especially weird to Ettore as I have  lived in California all my life, eight of those years being in San Diego and Los Angeles on the beach.  I felt I was doing winter missionary work spreading the gospel among the sunshine natives about the benefits and virtues of cloudy and cold living.

Cut to today when I let it slip that it was cold and I was “over it!” 

GASP!

Bitch put on a coat and clam it up.  I hate to complain, especially about the weather, but there I was doing just that.   That is when I needed to remind myself of the alternative…the sunny day at the beach.  UGH!  These photos were from this last summer…

Oh happy days...

I really did  try to be light and airy and summery, but…well…not so much.  Maybe it was the hat…too dramatic?    I had an old theater professor who used to say I dressed “emotionally.”  Regardless of my perma frown…we  took Lucas to the local de-commissioned nuclear power plant watering hole (Rancho Seco) for family fun and frivolity and while Lucas had an absolute  blast to me everything was just so sticky…and hot…and well…sticky.

"Daddy who's that scary witch?" "Hush son, that's no witch...that's your Mother."

Being the Mother and Stepmom to three boys you have to like the beach and go to the beach or the lake or the river.  It is written in the contract.  Active sons and stepsons have no interest in sitting around in the rain watching you look mysterious in big black sunglasses, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes and journal.

You got to leave all that in your 20’s, slap on the SPF 1,000 and head into the great sunny outdoors.  That is exactly what I do in my long black beach summer dress that Ettore asks if there is a funeral at the beach.

Yes, just one.

Mine.

Merry Christmas

My 2 1/2 year old son and I don’t seem to be agreeing on much these days.  I think he should pee in the potty, he thinks he should pee in the produce section at Whole Foods.  I think night time is for sleeping, he thinks night time is for yelling “MAMA” 50,000 times while trying to pry my eyelids open so I can watch him jump on the couch.  I think food is for eating, and…well…he thinks food is for decorative wall art.

THANK GOD FOR SESAME STREET!  WE BOTH AGREE SESAME STREET ROCKS!

Case in point, the video above.  Grover parodies the now famous Old Spice commercial “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like.”  Old Spice has always smelled like Grandpa to me, but apparently there is a new Old Spice man in town.   The Sesame Street version is hysterical, adorable, and right on the pop culture money. 

Just in case you haven’t seen the Old Spice original, see below.  Put the kids to bed, turn on the TV for your Man, pour yourself a good glass of wine and watch dee-lish actor Isaiah Mustafa.   

Your welcome.

P.S. As I am typing this…I’m on a horse.

I swear to God this thing was 8 feet long.  The computer screen make it look MUCH SMALLER.  I would never scream like that over a little lizard.

In bathrooms across America I have no head.  The mirrors in bathrooms everywhere seemed to be positioned for 7th graders, the cast of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, every woman under 5′ 7″ tall, or Hayden Panettiere.  I have always said, “I am 5′ 10″ in a 5′ 7″ world.  The world fits perfectly if you are 5′7″ tall.  You don’t have bruises permanently raked across your thighs from forever walking into tables.  Door jams don’t pose immediate danger, you don’t have to yell “INCOMING” whenever attempting to enter a Porsche.  If you fall during co-ed soccer people don’t yell “TIMBERRRRR” (thank you high school P.E.) and you don’t check your make-up in the bathroom mirror at a gas station by having to stoop over, as the photo above illustrates.

Don’t get me wrong, I love being tall.  I am trying to wean myself off the self Hatorade so I am not going to sit around and stew in my height while I have two legs to walk around on.  Sure they are covered in bruises from slamming into things and there hasn’t been a pair of  jeans yet that seem to make it all the way to the floor.  I have been trying to make high-water pants cool since 1981.  It is a good thing I don’t have modest ankles, because those baby’s are never covered up.  My ankles bare it all to the world.

When I was growing up I was a gymnast.  Nadia Comaneci was my hero.  While other girls were slobbering over Barbie, or if you were on the early developed side Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains, I spent my days in a white leotard and braids convinced I was a Romanian Olympic gymnast, or Cher’s child that was put of for adoption.  I actually am adopted and I was convinced Cher was my biological Mother,  but that story is for another post.  Mostly I wanted to be Nadia, except that as other little girls stopped growing, I just kept right on heading North to 5′ 10″.

I didn’t mind being taller than say everyone, as a 7th grader.  Sure there were some awkward school dances, and the unfortunate comparisons to a zipper when I stood sideways and stuck my tongue out, but I had bigger worries…like my perm….and the also unfortunate comparisons to a microphone.

All was not lost.  I may of had to give up my dream of being a gymnast, or at least the first 5′ 10″ gymnast, but as one door closes another opens.  I ran track, modeled a bit and eventually filled out in proportion to my up.  In fact, when I was in my high school’s production of A Chorus Line my lovely and supportive gay friend Joel would assure me it was wonderful to be tall and my time would come…for instance his Dad saw A Chorus Line four times and Joel would tell me his Dad said I was the reason he sat in the front row every night.  I can only imagine. 

She stoops to conquer.

My thighs don’t need buckets of Otis Spunkmeyer cookies.  My thighs need a bucket of carrots and a good personal trainer.

 Here is the thing though.

I felt bad.  I wanted to help my stepson Reilly with his fundraising for his school.  We try and teach giving back, working hard, and putting efforts in to your education.  I couldn’t turn him down when confronted with his eager face hoping to do well at the fundraiser and put into practice the lessons I had been teaching him.

Actually that is a load of crap.  Reilly is FAR MORE SAAVY THAN THAT.  I felt guilty and did NOT want to be the Stepmom that didn’t but any cookies from her stepson… and the kid knew it. 

I bought four buckets.

With a check for four buckets of Otis Spunkmeyer cookies safely tucked away in his fundraiser envelope I got a hug and an announcement of ”your the best Stepmom in the world!”  In turn for selling his buckets of cookies Reilly won something made of plastic that will end up in the vacuum, the baby’s mouth, or on the floorboard of my car.

Guilt sells.

This is not this Stepmom’s first guilt filled misstep in the unchartered territory of school fundraising.  I met my stepsons when they were well into their elementary school careers.  There was no warming up to school fundraising for me.  No learning the ropes, no pacing myself starting in my child’s kindergarten class.  I dove head first in the live auctions, donations, and volunteering.  My fundraising learning curve was like jumping off a cliff.

“It’s for the children”  is all I could  mutter to my wallet shocked husband when I got in a bidding war at a school auction and paid several hundred dollars for horse back riding lessons even though horses scare the crap out of me and I have yet to ride a horse that I haven’t fallen off of.

Ettore: (with Swiss German accent) “Sweetheart!!!  What are you doing?  Put that bidding paddle down….YOU DON”T EVEN LIKE HORSE!”

Me:  “It’s for the children…we can bond.”

I should of known my stepsons would be horrified when I was the lone bidder at ANOTHER school auction and bid on and won a box of home grown seasonal vegetables delivered once a month for an entire year.

“YOU BID ON WWWWWWWHHHHHHAAAAAAAAATTTTTT………….AND WE WON IT???????!!!!!!!!!!……………..NNNNNOOOOOO” was the  response I received when I got home holding a token Eggplant to show the boys we will be learning all about where our food comes from once a month for the next year. 

Aparently the boys learned our food comes in a box that sits on our doorstep while their Father and I Google what to do with random vegetables we have never heard of.

It’s for the children.

I am signing off to go turn on the oven and bake me some cookies.

At least I have until Back to School night in the Fall to finish them off.

Uh-Oh...She see me

I live with all boys.  I call our house the Haus of Boys.  One husband, two teenage stepsons, one male toddler, and one boy puppy.   I even think our one lone plant we have is a boy.  The plant was a gift from a neighbor for Christmas and while the plant has grown big and strong…it has yet to flower.  I swear it is a boy plant, or just a girl plant slowly dying (and sprouting chin hairs) under the pressure of all the male testosterone in the house.

When I got pregnant I put in a request to Jesus.  I said,  ”Jesus. It’s Meggan.  I am so grateful and blessed to be pregnant and of course a healthy child is all that matters…BUT Jesus…I would like to put in a small request.  Being surrounded by the wonderful husband and stepsons I have in my life, my tank is all filled up on boy.  My girl tank however is empty.  Is is possible to order up a nice and quiet baby girl?”

Jesus being Jesus, and I am sure very busy, must not of got my message, or he has a wicked sense of humor because I got…Lucas.  I AM SO GRATEFUL TO HAVE MY BABY AND I LOVE HIM WITH ALL MY HEART, but not only is he not a girl, he is the boy of all boys.  There is not one quiet or delicate bone is his body.  He runs, he jumps, he throws, he hates to be inside, loves to be dirty, loud, funny, on the go, messy, exploring, chasing, never ever ever sit still, and as of today, boy who drinks out of the milk carton!

He just turned  two-years-old.

The boy gene runs deep.  

Wecome to the family.