Bite Me.

In this stepmom journey, the hardest thing I've learned so far, is that good intentions are not enough. I used to think that if I could only explain Dad's perspective to Biomom, that she'd see his point of view - esp because I'm always trying to see her side of things. Sadly, nowadays I simply fail to see her side of the story.

This past week, Dad and Bonus Daughter had a seemingly pleasant conversation over the phone about summer camp. Bonus Daughter is visiting us for 5 weeks and going to Summer Day Camp. Dad explained that the day camp would provide lunches everyday and that it was included in camp costs. Now typically any kid would get excited about the prospect of camp food like pizza and hot dogs. Bonus Daughter however, decided to consult her own personal lobbyist, Biomom. Biomom subsequently sent Dad an email asking to discuss her concerns about lunch.

What concerns, we wondered. They're certainly not concerns about being served unhealthy foods at camp, because Bonus Daughter has had a steady unhealthy diet of white foods, slimfast bars, pancakes, frappucinos and frozen yoghurt over the years. Usually, I try to gently educate Bonus Daughter about the benefits of wheat bread vs white bread, cultures in yoghurt,eating veggies, and so on, without any success whatsoever.

Dad explained to Biomom that we have not yet received camp menus, and that there wasn't really much to do at this point, two weeks prior to summer camp starting. Dad said we'd work out the lunch situations with Bonus Daughter once she got here. Now, a rational person might accept Dad's explanation. A rational person might also pick their battles, and let Dad feed his Daughter without interfering. But not Biomom. Biomom wrote an email saying she would strongly prefer that we don't have issues such as packing lunches, and that she needed to figure out if she needed to pack lunches for Bonus Daughter to send along for the Summer. I'd love to know what kind of earthquake emergency food bars she was going to supply for 5 weeks to sustain Bonus Daughter.

Dad and I stressed for a little bit, as our every move is always under microscope. I so badly wanted to tell her to let us be, leave us alone, and just let us be parents for 5 weeks, without feeling like the Big Brother is constantly watching us and interfering! But we decided to ignore her email in the end. The other lesson in my stepmom journey, is to pick those battles... Biomom eventually called up summer camp herself , and they said they did not have lunch menus available yet. Go figure.