Tag Archives: engagement

Premarital counseling, part 1

June 11, 2012 Crissi Langwell Leave a comment

We had our first premarital counseling session today. I have to admit, I was nervous about starting this. I figured the pastor would begin by asking us if we were having premarital sex, give us a failing grade, then tell us to come back when we’ve decided to take this seriously. Or, I was afraid he’d have us divulge every single secret thought we’d ever had to the point where we’d decide marriage was absolutely not for us. I could just see me being forced to name off all the things that Mr. W did that didn’t put stars in my eyes, and have him, in return, divulge just how bad my morning breath was by comparing it to various dead animals, and end the discussion by throwing pencils at each other till they stuck.

Luckily that didn’t happen.

What did happen was going over the details of the ceremony. Our pastor shared his love of performing weddings, which was evidenced by the fact that he’s performed somewhere between 200-300 of them! And as he described the ceremony, it became even more clear. Never performing the same ceremony twice, Pastor spends a lot of time getting to know the couple he’s counseling, and then writing out a ceremony sermon that fits them. So we spent the first meeting going over the basic details, and what we wished to happen during the ceremony. We discussed options for vows, song choices, who was giving me away, how we would be introduced, the details of the rehearsal dinner… And when he was done, he gave us a packet of about 130 questions asking us to describe all the things that irritated us about each other.

Just kidding. But the packets did have a lot of questions meant to get us thinking. Mr. W, nerd that he is, went straight upstairs and answered every question. I added that to my mental note of things that irritate me about Mr. W (totally kidding!), and saved the packet for later. Actually, I’m looking forward to diving into it, but want to save it for a new day.

The whole meeting got both Mr. W and I even more excited about the wedding! We were still a little giddy over buying my wedding ring today (a diamond crested white gold slender band, it’s so gorgeous you guys!), though we’re still on the lookout for the perfect ring for Mr. W. Finishing the day with more plans made towards the wedding made the actual event that much more real. I mean, it’s not like it isn’t real. But until it actually happens, it still feels kind of like a fairy tale. Each decision that is made to get us closer to the finish line gives us little glimpses into the fact that in 4 months time (that’s 16 weeks, y’all), we’re going to be husband and wife at the party of our lives.

Omg. :-D!!!!

Oh! And to top it off, my shoes came in today – one of two pairs that I absolutely love and have to decide between.

I swear, sometimes life feels so good that I’m afraid I’m going to turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of 12.

Blending families, The Love Front, WC Mom Engagement

Blending a family

November 1, 2011 Crissi Langwell 2 Comments

Who knew it took so many steps to blend a family?

If I had my own theme song it would tell the story of a single mom and a single dad raising kids of their own till they came together to form a family that includes a teenage boy who ignores everyone in the house, a teenage girl who has something snarky to say about everyone and everything, and a 10 year old spaz who hides as much as possible to avoid getting bossed around by the rest of the household.

And that’s the way we became the Dysfunctional Bunch.

When I broke the news to DQ about Mr. W’s and my engagement, she responded by giving me the silent treatment. Well, not entirely silent. Her exact words were, “Your ring is ugly, and it looks like it doesn’t fit.”

And THEN she gave me the silent treatment.

Mr. W’s son had also decided to go mute for the rest of the day, though, to be honest, it wasn’t a remarkable change from his usual teenage way of responding to us whenever he just wasn’t in the mood to converse. Luckily, both teens’ silent protest only lasted a day. By dinner the next evening, the ring on my finger was almost forgotten as we went about business as usual, rehashing our day over chicken and potatoes.

However, all this didn’t take away from the tension that seemed to have been building ever since we started talking marriage to the kids. And while the mounting tension hadn’t yet blown, the engagement announcement brought us right to the cusp of the breaking point. As a result, all of us were walking on eggshells around each other, stuffing any resentments over strangeness or differences in the other family way deep inside.

Obviously, this was only going to work for so long.

A few weeks after our engagement was announced, the family woke up early to catch a plane to the Happiest Place on Earth – the Long Beach Airport. And then we drove the rest of the way to Disneyland. The vacation had been planned for almost a year. And the way the family was starting to feel like an “us against them” in regards to every difference imaginable, it couldn’t have come at a more opportune time.

Mr. W’s son caught up on sleep the whole drive to the airport, in the waiting area of the airport, on the plane, after the plane, and once inside the hotel room. His pillow became an extension of his unbrushed head as he racked up roughly 7 hours of sleep for the 3 he had missed by waking up early. When he wasn’t sleeping, he was trying to catch the flailing free-wifi on his laptop, growing more and more frustrated as he was kicked off the Internet. To his father, he was blatantly silent as he pretended to not hear anything his dad had to say to him. But he was courteous and responsive to me – even going so far as to direct questions to me. It was his passive protest, knowing that talking to me and not his dad would dig this hole of dismissal even deeper.

DQ hunched over her phone almost the whole vacation, typing furiously to her latest love interest as she made no bones about wanting to be back home with him and her friends instead of being held captive by her family. If I so much as left my iPhone unattended, she’d snatch it up and hack into it, wearing down my battery so she could catch up on her Facebook. And even though I graced her with every single ride she loved at the park, It’s a Small World had her threatening to jump overboard, taking small children with her if she had to.

And the Taz had about a day and a half of Disney excitement in him, and barely even that. By the end of the second day of our three-day vacation, he let us know that Disneyland was NOT the happiest place on earth (because, duh, the Long Beach Airport is).

However, this mini-vacation was slowly creeping into all of us, joining us together as we experienced all the fun, drama, and extreme exhaustion together. More often than not, I caught all the kids grinning real smiles. And the barriers that had been stubbornly kept in place were starting to evaporate. The most amazing parts were when the kids would actually speak with each other instead of just tolerating each other’s existence.

And now that we’re back from vacation, the calm is evident as an unspoken acceptance about our blended family rises to the top. Don’t get me wrong, the awkwardness still remains. All this is still a work in progress. But that’s what we’re doing – working on building this permanent new family while respecting the families our children treasure from our separate pasts. DQ even admitted that my ring isn’t that ugly.

I think we’re going to be ok.

(Just catching up? CLICK HERE to read all about our family’s engagement story)

Blending families, The Love Front, WC Mom Engagement

How to tell the kids you're getting married

October 24, 2011 Crissi Langwell 2 Comments

Where we last left off, Mr. W had just popped the question. For the rest of the day and part of the next, we got to revel in the fact that we were newly engaged and bound to be with one another for the rest of our lives.

I couldn’t think of anything more perfect.

Driving back, I was anxious to get the word out. I quickly let my sister know with an excited and gushing phonecall. And then we drove to my parents’ to spring the good news. It only took 5 minutes of waving my hand around for my mom to notice the shiny brilliance on my finger. We drove home and unpacked, resting up a bit before I went to gather my children from where they were staying while we were away.

First pickup was my son. His friend’s mom and I stood in the driveway excitedly gossiping about upcoming wedding plans, how he asked, and anything else wrapped around that ring on my finger. The Taz came out with his things, and his friend’s mom breathlessly told him I had some news for him. Taz looked at me expectantly, and I held my hand up to show him the ring. He rolled his eyes and sighed loudly.

“I knew it!” he muttered, and I put my hand down, smiling sheepishly in my embarrassment.

“Taz,” my friend said. “Congratulate your mom!” she ordered him.

“Congratulations mom,” he mumbled, putting his stuff in the car. But he moped for only a second. His first reaction was forgotten as we stayed a few minutes longer to talk with his friend’s family, and then as he told me about his weekend on our way home.

“Do you really hate the idea?” I asked Taz. He shook his head.

“I was just kidding,” he told me, even though I knew he hadn’t been. Truth is, while I would have loved an excited reaction from him, I wasn’t surprised that he had been disappointed. I knew he liked Mr. W. Sometimes I even think he loves him. But the idea of his mom getting married was still a really large change.

And his reaction only made me dread telling his older sister even more.

DQ has always been quite clear in her stance on Mr. W and me. She likes the guy. But she was not a fan of us moving in together. While the Taz had welcomed that stage with great enthusiasm, DQ sulked about it for weeks before finally accepting her plight in life. And yet, I always knew that she would have preferred it had I stayed single for the rest of my life. It wasn’t that she wanted me to get back together with her dad – that ship had sailed long ago. And it wasn’t that she wanted Mr. W and I to break up. But she missed the time when it was just she, Taz, and me all in one house.

I seem to also remember another time when DQ had been adverse to change. It was a little over 4 years ago, during the first week of living in our brand new apartment, when helicopters were circling overhead while we timidly peeked through curtained windows. As the police shut down the streets near our Santa Rosa condo on the westside, she told me we never should have moved out of my parents’ house. It was only one of many times that she would blast me in this decision to leave the safety of the country and all her friends to move to this cramped apartment of our own where money was tight and everyone looked at us funny.

It was the same place she was now wishing we lived instead of a house full of people all over again.

I walked in the door where she was staying with my sister-in-law. While tense about what she would say, part of me hoped that maybe she might be fine with this. I had talked with the kids plenty of times about the engagement that was bound to happen at any time, preparing them for when the event actually happened. And while it wasn’t her favorite news, she had offered many ideas for how the wedding should be and what we all should wear. She had even been there when I picked out the ring Mr. W would one day present me with. And so, with lots of hope and a bit of luck, I held up my finger when she looked at me.

She took one look at it, and stormed out of the room.

The goodbyes at my sister-in-law’s house were short, and the ride home was silent. I got home at the same time as Mr. W did from picking up his own son. And by the way his son silently left the car and slipped into the house, I had a feeling the news wasn’t any better on his side. I caught Mr. W’s eye, and his expression said it all.

We had the support of our families. We had the support of our friends. But the kids, whose opinion and support meant the most of all, could not have hated this decision worse.

To be continued…

Wine Country Mom

Tag Archives: engagement

Premarital counseling, part 1

Blending a family

How to tell the kids you're getting married

Giving the kids something to talk about in therapy.