Blog Challenge Day Seven

Day 07: Describe your relationship with your parents/siblings.

First a little background:
My parents divorced when I was a baby and my mom moved us from Arkansas to Arizona. I have an older brother, Chris. My mom met my step dad when I was about 5 and they were long distance for many years, and finally married in 2005. My dad remarried also but it didn't last and he is married again. Neither of those women are like a mother to me.

I will start with my mom. We have always had a close relationship. I may have kept things from her growing up, but now I know that I can tell her anything. She will never judge or make me feel bad about things, she'll only give me the best advice she can. And she's usually right. She lives in Oregon and we don't get to see each other nearly often enough. Twice a year at the most. But we manage to maintain a solid relationship, and are awlays there for each other.

Chris is 3 years older than me. Growing up, we fought like crazy. But that's pretty normal for a brother-sister relationship, I think. I believe that moving as much as we did kept the three of us close as a family. Starting when I was 8, Chris became my after school babysitter. He was really my main male role model, which is kinda weird. But he is the only male I was aruond often. Growing up, we always covered for each other. I remember when I was about 11, he and I were fighting and I threw down the electric mixer in anger and I broke it. He came up with a lie to tell mom about how it broke. We really never tattled on each other. I don't think that's normal for a brother-sister relationship, but I'm glad it's how we were. Now that we're grown, we remain pretty close. It's tough because he lives in Arkansas and I haven't seen him since my wedding (June '09). He has a almost 6 year old daughter whom I haven't seen since she was 17 months old. I hate the distance. And we don't talk enough. But somehow we're still close.

Something I love about my family is that we communicate well. My mom can always be counted on to smooth things over. If I'm having some kind of issue with Chris, I just have to talk to her about it and she can help me see his point of view. And if it's necessary, she can talk to him and everything will be okay. We are a very emotional group, the three of us. I don't know if "emotional" is the right word, but we're not afraid to say/show how we're feeling. I think that's a good thing.

Then there's my dad. Well, we lived far from each other. Chris and I went to Arkansas for about two months every summer. I'm not gonna lie, I never really felt like I fit in in Arkansas, with my cousins and everyone there and all the outdoorsy stuff. It just wasn't me. I think it took a few years for me to warm up to my dad (I started going to Arkansas when I was about 5). I always spent a lot of time with his wife-at-the-time, Twyla. Now that I'm all grown up, I realize that we don't have a very close relationship. He doesn't know me like my mom does. But we have talked more often over the past couple years, and I feel like he is making more of an effort to keep in touch, which is nice. In the future I hope to be able to have more "real" talks with him, but for now we're good. :)

I feel like I should mention my step dad Keith, because he was a father figure to me. But like I said, they were long distance so he wasn't around every day. But we saw him once every other month or so, I'd say. He is a quiet man, doesn't show much emotion. But I know without a doubt that he would help us out whenever we needed it. He's a good man!

***This was my 100th blog post!***