Ketchup

What did the mustard say to the tomato sauce when it lagged behind? 'Oy, ketchup!'

Ok, sorry, couldn't help myself. I've been blogligent. No, I thought that could be a word but it really isn't. I've been negligent about blogging. Sorry. Been kinda busy.

I moved. I now live in a big (but apparently not big enough) house with two boyfriends, two children, five cats and a really hyperactive Jack Russell.

The cats are not getting on. And they don't like the dog. Except for my one small cat, who loves the dog but won't go out to visit with him because the other cats might be out there. Urgh. Seriously, this has been the single biggest problem we've faced in the moving in saga. It has nearly caused Boyfriend #1 and I to break up at least twice. I wanted to move out within a week of moving in. So here is my first tip for blending families:

TIP: Sort out the damn pets. If I knew exactly how to do that, I would've done it. Get a pet psychologist, or something. Whatever. Pets will be the death of your relationship. Well, maybe not the death, but they'll put some serious strain on that shit. And I do have friends who will break up with a person who dislikes their cats, so it could be the death.

Also, my ex has been very ill, so the children are living with us full-time. And my ex in-laws have been around a lot. And I've been worried sick because I do still love this man and we co-parent these remarkable children. That has not helped. Luckily, my partners have been super-supportive. Even though none of them bought into the full-time children deal, they've dealt with it amazingly, and been fantastic at supporting, loving and caring for all of us. And at having truncated, not particularly sexy dates, because children and stress.

In fact, thanks to our new living arrangements, my kids now sit down at table every night to a lovingly prepared meal. We chat, laugh, eat, share the clearing up. When it was just the three of us, the kids and I tended to go for trays in front of the TV. Now we have real mealtimes. It's a treat. And trays in front of the TV is another kind of treat. Which is the way it should be.

My girlfriend has had some problems in her live-in relationship. Not fun stuff, but I'm so very proud of how hard she and her boyfriend are working to learn and grow individually and together from it. It was all drama all the time for a few days, and that was hard on our relationship, but the two of us also learned and grew and that was great.

Been a lot of learning and growing. I'm reading More Than Two (slowly - it's a whopperload of information to take in) and that's been greatly comforting to me. Good to know that my slow practise has brought me to a lot of understanding already, and good to know that my inevitable buggerups are not just because I'm a moron, or never going to get this right, but because it's both absolutely intuitive and yet totally against all our conditioning and much of our psychology to be in multiple relationships. We have to work, quite hard, to get through that. Totally worth it, though. I'm going to say totes worth it, just to annoy the boyfriends (heheheh).

So that's a brief catchup, kittens. I'll be back soon with news of My Important Life Decision (yep, another one) and updates on how polyhousehold is going.