{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Where's the Lemonade?","title":"#5.4 The Horrible First Year Revisited","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2321,"description":"The first year of blending families can be pretty tricky and downright horrible. In this episode, we talk about the challenges of throwing two families together and how we dealt with the obstacles we ran into.\nListen to this Episode\n\nLove does not conquer all.\nFor those of you that think everything has been rosy. It has not.\nThis has brought up some tension and memories of the hard times. Sacramento Airport.\nWe were naive enough that we thought love would be able to handle all of the problems we faced. That helped but was not enough.\nEverything was hard.Meshing kids. We had two 16-year-olds that were completely different from different kinds of friends. One very social and another not very social at all. You cannot force them to be friends; they don’t want to be. Now they are excellent friends.\nMeshing rules. Is there a double standard for some of the kids? Or is everything the same?\nMeshing discipline. Understanding boundaries with stepkids was rigid. Older kids and younger kids.\nExpectations for a clean house.  Darren’s idea of cleaning is picked up. Not clean. Paige wanted things cleaned.\nLogistics of a blended family\nMovingLogistics. What to keep, what to throw out? Where do we fit everything? Two households crammed into one place.\nMoving kids from schools, friends, and church. Etc.\nPaige and the kids are trying to overcome feeling like guests in the house.\nFinances were hardFood was hard, what to cook, what did kids like, what did they not like. How much to cook?\nGoing to church in the same congregation as Darren’s Ex-WifeWhose friends are whose? \nWho can I talk to? \nWho do I vent to, etc.?\nGoing out to dinner was a challenge. Soda or water? Why was it contentious?\nRemember your kids in the changesKids have such little control over the situation, so they want some control over it. Mountain Dew (Jake), Jacob with his long hair.\nThe kids need to feel like they have some control and some say. \nMarriage counseling and other help got us through it.\nMarriage...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/AbNhumt2hVbZcTgz2Qf8P7RE5CXq8b7ECuhOS8ZX7Wk/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzExNzYvMTU1MDM3/NjEyNy1hcnR3b3Jr/LmpwZw.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}