Do I Get on With My Step Kids? | Step Family Problems

A question that occasionally pops up in my DMs or on email is “Do you get on with your step kids?!”, usually followed by a brief tale of a “blended family” going a bit tits up. So I’m bringing this one outta the parental shadows. Sure, it’s taboo as no one wants to publicly declare that they don’t like/don’t get on with an innocent sprog; least of all the spawn of their beloved. It’s a toughie, but with well over half a mill step families, currently squabbling under one roof in the UK*, it’s an issue that’s going nowhere!

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Kynren Explained

If you’re anything like me a month ago, you probably haven’t heard the word Kynren, unless you’re an avid watcher of my insta-stories, in which case a couple of Thursdays ago you would’ve been bombarded with my word du jour (I’ve uploaded the stories HERE for your viewing pleasure!). So, without keeping you on the edge of your seats, what is Kynren? Kynren is an outdoor spectacular of a show, which takes place through the summer months in the beautiful, almost Teletubby Land-like, lush green hills of Bishop Auckland in County Durham; each of the 17 shows, which “start in daylight and end in starlight” crams 2000 years of British history into 90 minutes, showered with fireworks, peppered with live-stock and a cavalry of white horses to boot, all with bucket loads of nostalgia.

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How Do You Solve a Problem Like H?

I’ll be honest, I’ve recited this post in my head a thousand times – never getting further than the fourth line. I’ve promised (my instagram following and myself) for a few months that I’d share what it is exactly that we’re going through with my beautiful, biggest bean – Hugo. Sometimes things are just too great to share in a social media caption, and definitely too monumental to squeeze into a 15 second instagram story. But the main reason I’ve procrastinated over this tome for the past two months – abandoning all other writing until this was complete, is that it’s hard to write about something when I’m not sure where it began, it feels like we could be in the middle and I most certainly don’t know if it will ever end.

But even before I begin, a preface if you will, I need to mention a couple of things. As always, I have Hugo’s permission to share our story. Secondly, Hugo, 85% of the time is a wonderful, intelligent, talented, sporty, witty and glorious person. It’s unfortunately that the other 15% is coming close to ruining our lives and Hugo is adamant there is nothing he can do to stop it. We’re trapped on Hugo’s emotional roller-coaster – I just hope someone finds the brakes or gives us a soft landing when we crash.

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John Lewis Christmas Ad 2016 #BusterTheBoxer

It was only last weekend mid X-Factor ad break, whilst keeping a keen eye out for our very own family ad, that I turned to Mr Only Girl and muttered, through a mouthful of Fruit and Nut, “I haven’t seen the John Lewis ad yet.” It had undertones of a disappointed 7 year old discovering that, perhaps, Santa doesn’t really exist… we all know he does really! These days ads are often seen as an obstacle to overcome to get to what it is we really want to watch – we fast forward, skip and watch online in order to avoid full length ad breaks. But the John Lewis Christmas ad breaks these rules – with over 26 million YouTube views on last year’s offering, the JL Xmas vid is the hottest drop since Take That reunion-tour tickets went on sale. It’s a serious calendar worthy event, which for me, signals the official start of the festive season and is the green light for the Christmas soundtrack in the office!

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10 Ways Thomson Holidays Busied Our Boys

Our family can be a logistical nightmare: ferrying the 14 year old to town to hang out with his friends whilst getting the 12 year old over to his mates house to play on the PlayStation, then herding the 8 & 9 year olds to a football match – meanwhile, poor little Casper gets dragged along on the promise of a jammy dodger. My point being, keeping all 5 boys entertained in one place is a huge ask. So when I started talking to Thomson about our latest family holiday (see more details here), my biggest challenge to them was to keep our brood so busy for a week, in the sun, that they wouldn’t pick up their iPad or whinge about not having their beloved PlayStations.

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