For as long as I can remember, I’ve spent a lot of time looking out windows. I was that kid who daydreamed in front of windows. As an adult, I curled myself up into a ball in front of many windows, longing for comfort.

For much of my life, though, I’ve looked through dirty, grimy windows. I never took the time and energy to clean them. (I don’t really know anyone who likes to clean windows.) My half-attempt was too much Windex, which only smeared my view. Looking back, I never did the work it took to clean my windows.

It’s no wonder that I couldn’t see clearly. For years and years, when I walked out my front door, I found myself choosing men who were emotionally unavailable. It has taken a lot of time and exhausting self-reflection to scrub off the grime — so I could see better.

Tell me about the windows you’re looking through:

Can you see out of them? Do you need to spend some time cleaning, too?

~~~

On that note, we spent months researching windows for our addition. Our goal was to find stylish windows that reduced energy use in a cost-efficient way. That’s how we found ourselves face-to-face with Serious Windows. Check out the windows we installed this week!

[Nope, Serious Windows did not endorse me to write this post.]

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Wait until you hear how the couple picture above — from 6 Degrees of Love — met.

On their blog, they refer to themselves simply as “Her” and “Him.”

So, two years ago, she was living in her parents’ home in California with her “still-going-to-college-30-something husband and two small children.”

They’d been together since she was 19 years old, and she explains: “Twelve years into our relationship, and eight years into our marriage, we realized it wasn’t going to get better, that we were wrong for one another, and that we should go our separate ways.”

Her ex moved out. In the meantime, she got a job offer in a town three hours away. “I commuted for four months before I was able to convince him to let me move with the kids. He did, and before I knew it, I was 100% on my own single mom.”

“It was hard, harder than anything I’ve ever done,” she says. “But I did it. And the kids–they were good. Better than good.”

In the meantime, she started to dream. She’d never been to Europe, somewhere she’d always wanted to go. So, she got a ticket to London. On a cross-Altantic flight from Detroit, she started chatting with a cute co-passenger from Virginia, who’s pictured above. He was recently-separated and the father of four kids.

“We talked for the entire seven-hour flight,” she says. “We couldn’t stop talking. We shared pictures of our kids… I still pinch myself at the beauty of it.”

Months later, they met up again — in Florida Keys. “It was romantic. But we were both VERY fresh off our separations, so it was also scary, in many ways. But, we knew. This was it. You know how there are those times in life when you just can’t let this opportunity pass? We’d both done that so often in our marriages that we just KNEW we couldn’t do that this time.”

Back home, she started job-hunting in Washington, DC. “I was able to get a job much sooner than I’d thought.”

Here’s where some of you might raise your eyebrows: He and She moved in together — in September 2010 — before any of the kids had met each other.

Granted, they’d met each other’s kids numerous times during cross-country trips. So, she first moved out east solo, while her kids were with their dad. She had time to prepare her kids’ emotionally for the move — and to set up their new home before they arrived.

“We approached it with the knowledge that our kids are JUST KIDS,” she says. “They just want to be loved, to feel safe — and most importantly, they did NOT choose this.”

“Forgiveness is important and key,” she adds. She forgives the kids for acting out when they afraid — and she forgives herself for NOT letting them act out when they probably need to.

“We make sure they all know that, no matter what, they are loved. We tell them that it’s always okay to tell us how they are feeling. We will not judge them or make them feel bad. We use words like ‘We understand’ and ‘It’s okay’ and ‘You have a right to feel that way.’ It is exhausting and time consuming, but worth it.”

In the meantime, they’re planning a “meaningful, special wedding ceremony in which we can truly encapsulate our entire family — and what it means to join the kids together as one family.”

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“So, are you changing your name?”

This must be the No. 1 question I’ve heard from family and friends since I got married. The answer is a no-brainer for me (I’m keeping my last name), although I DO understand why some women would make the change.

Take Maria (pictured above), for example, who writes a very honest must-read blog at 1,000 Reasons I’m a Bad Mom.

Maria met her son’s bio-dad — “a cool, young guy” –  when they were on vacation in Berlin. “After I found out I was pregnant, I emailed him, telling him essentially ‘This happened, I am not asking anything of you. Let me know if you want to be kept in the loop, I will not question your decision.’ He opted for a passive-but-interested role.”

In the meantime, Maria met a great guy, “T,” when she was eight months pregnant. So, T. has been in her son’s life since he was born. (On her son’s birth certificate, she’d left the spot for the father blank.)

They are having a courthouse wedding in December, followed by a wedding ceremony on the beach with family and friends in Costa Rica, where Maria is from (congrats!).

Maria explains her personal reasons for changing her name to her new husband’s: When Maria’s mom got married again, her second husband happened to have the same surname as Maria’s Dad (wow!),  “so my sister and I share the same surname. It might be silly of me, but I think it helped us be sisters and not just half-sisters.”

“I also believe names have a lot of meaning, and I want my son to grow up being a full part of this new family – and indistinguishable from his future siblings. Also, since my son and I don’t look alike at all, it’s imperative that we have the same surname so security guards in airports don’t think I’m kidnapping him!”

So, I’m curious:

If you’re a single mom who got married, did you change your name to your husband’s?

If you’re getting married again — or, you’re open to this idea in the future — would you change your name?

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Deep into wedding planning, what do you think was one of the most stressful decisions for me? No, it was NOT choosing our caterer or our wedding location. It was deciding what role my child should (or should not) have in our ceremony. In full disclosure, I’ve got some baggage around this: I was 12 years old when my mom got remarried, and I did NOT enjoy being a flower girl, or standing up in church for close to two hours in my stiff burgundy dress.

Fortunately, my own daughter was old enough — and articulate enough! — to let me know what she wanted to do during our ceremony. Her request — to walk down the aisle with me, and to sing after the ceremony in our newly formed family band — was just perfect. After all, when you get remarried as a single parent, the wedding is NOT just about you and your new partner. It’s about a growing family. So, how do you incorporate your kid(s) into your wedding ceremony?

I put this question recently to Swati from The Single Mother Chronicles (pictured above with her daughter). If you haven’t met Swati yet, be sure to check out her site. Big congrats to Swati, who is getting married on New Year’s Eve this year!

Between them, Swati and her fiancé have three daughters: Swati has a nine-year-old and her fiancé is the father of a 16 and 22-year-old. After much back and forth between everyone about their busy schedules — which included finishing pre-med school, a new job, and an ex-husband — they chose their wedding date because it was the one day when all three kids could be there.

When Swati sat down to talk to her daughter about the wedding, her daughter first “confirmed that a boy doesn’t have to carry our rings.”

Then, her daughter went onto say that in addition to carrying flowers and dropping petals before the ceremony, she would like to hold her mom’s hand “during the ceremony, stand up there, and probably be the ring bearer.”

“We are having such a good time talking about it,” Swati says. “I am really trying to enjoy EVERY moment of this process this time around. I am trying not to pressure her, but I want her to know she can do as much as she wants to.”

Most recently, her daughter (aka, the ring bearer and flower girl) also suggested that she might need “a pouch for the rings because she doesn’t want to run out of hands!”

If you’re a single parent who has gotten married (or would like to in the future!), please share your thoughts.

Do you think there’s an ideal role for kids — whose parents are getting married — during a wedding ceremony?

Does it depend on the child’s age?

Or, do you think that children do not belong in a remarriage ceremony?

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Our wedding countdown is on. In less than two weeks, we’ll be surrounded by family and friends under oak trees, as our insightful mutual friend, Ronnie — the one who tried to set us up years ago – officially marries us.

Last night, I was re-reading an email from Ronnie, dated two weeks after I’d met my guy at her book launch party. She was responding to my gushing confession. I really liked her cute friend! She had written back:

I just want you to know that I’m 100 percent for this relationship working out, because you both are extraordinary people and deserve each other.

I’m so grateful to her. Heck, I am feeling grateful to everyone right now: my family, my friends, all of you.  I’m so thankful to my future in-laws for letting us throw this love fest in their backyard… with more than 100 adults and 25 (!) kids. It seems like a long time ago when I wrote on this blog about my childhood friend who invited me — but not my daughter — to her wedding. I threw a small tantrum back then, but I now see why some folks do go for kid-free weddings.

Well, our wedding will be kid-plenty. In true kid-fashion, we’re going for cupcakes over a traditional wedding cake. And in addition to the home-brewed beer (one of which we are calling “Matrimony IPA”), there’s going to be an alcohol-free slushy machine.

In the meantime, I’ve tried to steal away (imagine five minutes in between taking a shower and packing a school lunch this morning) to finish my vows. We’ve decided not to share our vows with each other — well, until it’s time.

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So, when are you guys moving in together?

Our friends and family have been asking us this question a lot more these days. It’s understandable: we’re getting married this fall… and we haven’t figured out how we’re going to live together. We know we want to, we’re just not sure how.

“It’s under negotiation,” that Lucky Guy likes to tell people, as he gives me a big smile.

And it’s true: every day for the past few months, we’ve been talking about all the various scenarios in which we might live together. They include buying a home together, moving into one of our homes, adding on…

In the meantime, we’re “living apart together.” Otherwise known as “LAT.” Supposedly, this is a popular trend among European couples. And the idea is sort of rubbing off on me — at least for now.

The biggest stress right now is our overhead — and the fact that we go back and forth a lot. Between one mortgage and one rent – not to mention our utilities – we’ve got a lot on our plates. Don’t get me wrong: we’ve been house-hunting weekend after weekend, as we consider buying a place together. But here’s where it gets complicated:

Currently, he owns his small home, and I rent mine. They’re both one-bedrooms, which are five miles from each other. When we stay at either place, it’s quite cozy. Yet, I’ve got with a growing tween, so living in a small home together is going to get cramped quickly.

Besides, my kid and I have moved a lot since she was born (five times and counting). Although I’m SO excited to get married, I’m not any rush to toss another transition on her. And although I do my best to stay positive about packing – and unpacking boxes – moving just makes me pull my hair out.

Add to this the fact that I love our little home and our neighborhood… and I’m just not in a hurry.

Does anyone else relate? Got any ideas? I’m all ears.

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Sondra from Happy Healthy Hip Parenting has been a single parent cheerleader for as long as I’ve been blogging. She is a Certified Parent Educator and Life Coach and San Diego’s Parenting Examiner. So, when when I heard that Sondra — who’s the mom of a six-year-old son — was getting remarried, I asked if she’d share her news here.

Because Sondra and the man she calls “Mr. Right” were dating long distance — he  lives in Minnesota, where Sondra’s family also lives — they took advantage of all their time together. (Yep, that’s the new family above, and you can read more about her long-distance story here.)

When Sondra’s relationship with her now-husband first started getting serious — they got married in July! — he flew out to spend time more quality time with her son. “Long-distance marriage is not easy,” she says,  “but it’s been great to see my son blossom when the three of us are together.”

“People assume that my husband is his father when they’re together. Their bond is quite strong already so it’s been interesting to hear my son explain it to people. Before we got married he would say, ‘He’s not my dad,’ with a confused look on his face but now that we’re a family, he’s embraced their newly defined relationship and is thrilled to have a Bonus Dad!”

Moreover, Sondra’s son has been asking for a sibling — and they recently found out that he’s going to be a big brother. “This will be my husband’s first child. Just seeing him with my son is amazing, knowing that already he’s a wonderful father.”

I asked Sondra why she was changing her name to her husband’s and she explained: “I changed my name when I married my son’s father and my maiden name officially became my middle name. When our son was born, we used the same two names for him as well. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly and I’m happy that my family name lives on through the two of us.”

“Although my son and I no longer share a last name, the fact that our middle names are the same is pretty significant. We have discussed using my maiden name once again for the baby’s middle name — so that both of my children will have that in common.”

“I’m a little concerned how it’ll affect things now that my son and I no longer share the last name, but this year’s paperwork for school includes room for Family #1 (Parent 1 and 2) and Family #2 (Parent 1 and 2) which was very refreshing to see.” (Yeah, that IS refreshing!)

It’s not Sondra’s new last name, however, that has her thinking a lot these days. It’s this question: “Am I no longer considered a single mom after I get married again?”

You might remember that when I announced my own wedding news, I said that I’ll always consider myself to be a single mom. That’s why I’d love to know:

If you’ve gotten remarried, do you still consider yourself a single mom?

If you think about getting married sometime in the future — or, maybe you’re already planning a wedding — do you think that being a single mom will always be a part of your identity?

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I first “met” Kelli when she commented on my blog back in 2008. That’s when she honestly shared her story here: she was the 39-year-old mother of two children (who are biracial like my daughter). She was happily married for 13 years, when, she says, “my husband relapsed into alcoholism very abruptly and left us in early 2006.”

Well, that sounded a bit familiar. Yet Kelli got back on her feet, worked hard, and parented like a super star. Fast forward a couple of years and “an old friend I used to work with stopped by to help me fix my computer.  And… standing next to him in the kitchen, there were butterflies in my stomach.”

At first, Kelli was very cautious about introducing her friend, Mark, to her kids. But over time, she saw how incredibly patient and steady he was. “He was raised by a stepfather so he knows this relationship from different angles,” she says.

So, when Kelli and Mark got married in September – in Central Washington, in a meadow overlooking the North Cascade Mountain range – “we started off with a statement about this marriage being not just the joining of two people, but really the start of a family.”

Kelli’s children — who are five and nine — “walked me down the aisle and they were the only people to stand up with us.” Also, Mark spoke directly to her kids in his vows — “which I hadn’t known he was going to do, promising to love them, and care for them financially and emotionally, and raise them to the best of his ability into adulthood and for always.”

Today, Mark is the stay-at-home parent who brings the kids to school and picks them up. “Mark really chose them just like he chose me,” adds Kelli. “Step parenting is a thankless job, in some ways.”

That’s not to say that everything was sunshine from Day One. When Kelli first told her daughter about getting married, “she initially reacted with shock and upset. I just told her it’s OK to have very mixed feelings. She, like her Mom, struggles with transition.”

While their ceremony — which they prepared themselves, with amazing creativity — was very thoughtful, it wasn’t all serious.  We did ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’ in the moment of the vows to determine who goes first, and I highly recommend this method.”

They also read their vows from handmade books — which Kelli found on Etsy.com — and “we can take them out and read them again, on special evenings or anniversaries. And we have!”

I love the idea of writing down your vows in a book, so you can look back and read them again (or, have them read to you!)… Don’t you?

Photos by Joshua Trupin

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When he was just a boyfriend, your home front was fairly low-key – most of the time, anyway, considering the fact that no mother-daughter household can be so serene all the time. Even after you introduced your child to your new “friend,” all was surprisingly harmonious. He came over for dinner, and you watched those two laugh, dance, and make up songs. Your kid liked him, and he liked her.

Well, it’s different now. You know that your child still likes him. Sure, she does. But she’s not used to two adults being in the front seat. “I’m scared, Mama,” your daughter tells you at night, and you lie next to her, listening. You want to tell her that nothing is going to change, that love grows. But fear is fear, and she feels like you and he are two parallel lines moving together. She feels like she’s on the outside, looking in.

You hold her and tell her how much you both love her and care about her. You also tell her that the three of you are making a triangle together. This is new and different, and it’s okay to feel scared. You look into her eyes and tell her that all three of you are connected. Still, you know that your words will only go so far. This will take time, and you’re not exactly the patient type.

An hour later, after she asleep, you find him in the other room. His expression is worried, and he says: “I’m scared, love.” The truth is, you feel afraid sometimes, too. What can you do with all this fear except just face it? You remember when the door was shut, when it was just you and your baby girl. Now, you’ve opened the door, wider than ever in your life. You breathe and remind yourself that everything will work out, in its own triangular way.

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned so far about planning a wedding, it’s the fact that this is one mega, money-making industry. Oh, but many you knew that already, didn’t you? Quite a few of you suggested earlier that I should split town or keep it very small when I get married. (Now I know why.)

So, when I heard that Heather at Desperately Seeking Sanity — whom I got to meet in person at BlogHer 2008 in San Francisco! — had her dream wedding for less than $300, I wanted to know how this single mama did it. (And yes, this included “a wedding and reception for over 100 people, her dress, rings, cake, and everything else…”)

But before we get to the wedding, let’s back up:

Back in 2008, Heather had decided to cancel her online dating account. This single mom was done with “uneducated men who still lived at home with mom.” Yet, when she logged in to cancel her membership, there was an email in her box. She says she read it just for fun, “to see what whack job currently was interested in me.”

This guy called himself “Not a Bad Saint.” He said that he was the divorced dad of two kids, a son and a daughter (so was she!) who were “the center of my world. I am a service mechanic and and a do it yourselfer so dirty hands are normal. Would like to hear from you sometime.”

“I don’t even know why I responded,” Heather says now. “He wasn’t original, funny, or anything else that I was looking for in an initial contact. His profile was bare bones and not appealing.”  (Heather later found out that he’d emailed her via his cell phone.)

They began to email, and four days later, “we talked on the phone for the first time. I hung up on him twice while trying to get my cat off the roof.”

And get this: they realized that they lived around the corner from each other and “our kids went to the same school.  And that night, I had to take my oldest to football practice and he said he was going for a run. No more was said about location, but as I was walking the track, I realized that the man running toward me was him.  So the first time that we met in person? I was totally in big, baggy sweats, my hair pulled up, no make up and sweaty.  But I guess I made a great first impression.”

Apparently, on their first date — off the track — she told him that she was waiting for a knight in shining armor “to take me away on a white horse.” So, when they got married on May 16th, here’s how he showed up to the wedding (a surprise she didn’t know about!):

Yes, that’s her man, on his sister’s horse, on which he leaned down and “told me that he may be rusty but he’d always be my knight.”

They were married at her church with their four kids, whom she describes as “perfect stair steps because they are all two and a half years apart.” (When I asked how they all get along, Heather said: “Well, to be honest, they act like brothers and sisters.  One minute they are ready to kill one another, and the next they are plotting against us. “)

Heather found her dress on eBay for $30. Their rings came from Wal-Mart. “It’s just a ring,” says Heather. “I’m fine with the plain jane silver band… because I’m a little on the plane jane side.”

The bouquets and center pieces were made from flowers from the Dollar Store. Their reception was a potluck. Every guest brought a covered dish and its recipe. Then, her church “took all of the recipes and make us a cookbook.” And they made their own cake!

And here’s the best part: It was THEIR day, and everyone had a ball! All six of them — husband, wife, and their four kids — boogied their way out of church to their recession song, “We Are Family.”

~~~

Now you see what I mean about Heather?

I’d love to know: Are any of you dating online? (And ready to give up? C’mon now!)

And if any of you have more wedding budget planning tips, I’m listening!

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