Meet the Parents

A friend of mine said something today about how when she meets the right person they will have to be approved by her sister, children and mom. I thought I'd write the story of how my girlfriend and I met each other's families.

First of all, we started dating in October...almost ten months ago. She met my three youngest children and my sister all at once the following February, after we had been dating about four months. She still hasn't met my oldest yet, but he's a state away, so that will come with time.

When I met her family, it was at Thanksgiving, only a month after we began dating. I met everyone from her grandmother to aunts, uncles and cousins. It was incredibly nerve wracking and I didn't even know if it was okay to put my arm around her while we were there at first. Her family turned out to be very warm though and I was welcomed into the kitchen to help out with the dinner where I felt quite at ease. Then again at Christmas I met more family including her mother, sister and nieces and I again got to help out in the kitchen, but not as much as I did at Thanksgiving as there was more family there this time. Easter came around and I met more of the same and some new family and I even got to take apart the door knob to the kitchen pantry since it began to get stuck.

I just finally met her father and step mom this past weekend...they live a few states away and finally came for a visit.

Any time someone joins in the life of another, they have to meet the respective families. They have to be approved, in a way, by the respective families.

We have been together almost 10 months and I still get nervous every time I meet someone new in Steph's family or even friends I haven't met yet. I even get nervous a little bit when I'm meeting someone for the second or third time.

And she's still nervous every time we do something together with one or more of my kids. That is taking more time because I didn't introduce her to my kids until months into our relationship and it has still only been a little at a time.

We have just started talking about having her sleep over once in a while so that my kids can get used to seeing her around more. i guess that's the next level for us.

We are taking things slowly but I think if I didn't have kids, we would have moved faster. I've never moved so slow in a relationship before. It feels really good to take it at this pace. Sometimes I push to take things faster and sometimes I get scared and want it to go slower. But when I take the time to stop and think it over, I think it's perfect as it is right now.