When you look at my family you see four sons, a mom and a dad. Watching us from the outside looking in you wouldn’t even notice a difference in our family makeup compared to any other family. We appear to be just an average family of six.

As you start to get a little closer, that’s when you begin to notice that there’s something different. The four brothers all play together very well and they are all excited to get mommy’s attention, but as they turn toward daddy only two of them call him such. The other two call him by his first name. It is then that you realize that our family is blended.

My oldest two sons are from a previous marriage. I got married and had them at a very young age. I was only eighteen when my first son was born and then nineteen when my second son arrived. The marriage eventually fell apart and I was left to be a single mother for a few years. I struggled with that dynamic for awhile until I met my fiance. We then had two sons of our own.

I know that being a parental figure to children that aren’t your own has to be hard for my fiance. He has to constantly figure out where to draw the line and let me take over. I, in turn, have to figure out when to step back and let him be an authority figure. That’s something that I am still trying to work on. It’s really hard for me to do sometimes because for so long I was the only authority figure in their life.

Everyday is a new learning experience for us, and some days are better then others. We are learning as we go because this family dynamic is new to all of us. With every holiday we have to figure out how to blend our separate holiday traditions into one new tradition. It takes some work, and heads are bumped in the process, but in the end we always come up with a solution.

This is my family, and it’s hard work, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

Shynea is a self-proclaimed “penny pincher” and you can find her blogging at Penny Pinching Diva. She is an engaged mommy to four little boy, two of which are under two. That in, and of, itself causes her to have a severe case of the mommy brains.