The Loyalty Question

As always a busy weekend.  And believe it or not, I wasn't sailing....in fact, for the first time I missed the Miles River Race & of course the weather, wind,etc., was perfect...sigh.  Regardless, I had a good weekend with Xing Fu, his mom, his kids, & my kid.  And, it was my BFF(J)'s annual Day Before Memorial Day party & I was able to see a bunch of friends that I don't see all that often these days--so a good time despite not racing--there will be many more Miles races I'm sure....but to the point of the post:

I have been reading a bunch of "divorced with children & blending families" books these days & for the most part they are all full of dire predictions of hardship--jealousies, loyalty issues, & just down-right meanness. This weekend could have been a disaster because of all of those kinds of things--we had a lot of activities planned for all of us--Saturday we went strawberry picking at Larriland Farm http://www.pickyourown.com/ --great fun & the strawberries to die for--there is nothing like picking a ripe, juicy strawberry off the plant, warmed in the sun, & popping it in your mouth--amazing.  We gathered a ton of them--good thing we had a party to go to--great dessert.  I am also planning to make a couple strawberry-rhubarb pies--Xing Fu's kids' request so it appears that they will not go to waste. But I digress--the different activities--after strawberries I took two of Xing Fu's kids & my own to my kid's soccer game.  Here was an opportunity again for boredom, disaster, any number of things but it went very well--despite my kid's team getting trounced.  Dinner with all of us also pitfalls & then the big party on Sunday.   

Throughout all of this I kept thinking about the Loyalty question.  What's that?  Well, in ALL of the books there is always a section about the children's loyalty to their mother.  They don't want to like the "step" mom so they are undermining, manipulative & sometimes mean.  Especially if they do like the stepmom.  And according to Xing Fu, his kids really do like me--a lot.  So here I am waiting for the other shoe to drop & it hasn't.  Which is great!  I hope it never happens because I am very fond of them too.