Time Apart

Raising blended kids can be hard. You want them to grow up believing they are siblings, and not seeing a difference between each other - which I think we have done successfully; they don't even comprehend that they aren't 'true' siblings (what is a true sibling anyways).

But they often break off into groups. Lately, the boys have wanted to play by themselves a lot, doing boy things I guess - or maybe they are at the right age difference right now, who knows?

The girls on the other hand are at each others throats most of the time, or playing house the rest of the time.

I think it's important to give each sibling group (that is R & M, or R & little R or any combination thereof) a chance to be in the home by themselves together. To create their own bond and their own unique relationship separate from the main group. With so many kids this can be hard to facilitate. What usually ends up happening is that they are divided by biological sibling groups. The girls will go to glassman's house, and the boys to cabelman's house or the men will take their bio children out somewhere leaving the others at home.

I'd love to be able to give the non bio sibling groups a chance to hang out in the home and develop their own routines and there own games, I am just not sure how to go about facilitating that. With me gone so much working, and just craftymama being at home it's not like she can just randomly pick two kids and leave the others at home - it's an all or nothing deal.

Plus, I'd like to give each of them some alone time, some times, with me or craftymama. I often get alone time with BigR because he stays up later with the kids, but when I get home from work I don't want to single anyone out so I read stories to all of them or play with all of them. I need to make sure they are all seeing me when I get home. So how do I spend some alone time with the other kids. This will become even more important when Ziggy is born. I imagine they will all be pining for attention from me and craftymama, and there simply will be less time.

LittleR, by virtue of her school hours, will get some alone time with Craftymama and Ziggy, but the other kids will be in school most of the day and will not have that same opportunity.

Maybe I do need to separate them a little when I get home from work. Have some one on one time each day with one of them rather than always doing all of them. I don't know how that will work though - they all crave my attention when I am at home. I think all it would take is a story or two to reconnect with them, and then I'd have the rest of my limited evening with all of them.

I love spending time with my kids, I just need to find a way to do it one on one, thereby giving the other sibling groups a chance to play on their own as well.