Building a Strong Blended Family Through Faith and Communication

In this episode of Mom-Life Podcast, Sonya Flores sits down with author, editor, entrepreneur, and mom Andria Flores to discuss the realities of blended family life.

Drawing from her experiences as both a child in a blended family and a mother raising four children in one, Andria shares practical wisdom on navigating remarriage, parenting differences, communication, boundaries, counseling, and maintaining strong relationships through life's transitions.

Together, they discuss the emotional impact of divorce on children, how to create healthy family dynamics, the importance of self-reflection before entering new relationships, and the role faith plays in overcoming life's hardest seasons.

Whether you're part of a blended family, co-parenting, remarried, or simply looking for encouragement in your motherhood journey, this episode offers heartfelt insight, hope, and practical guidance for every stage of family life.

Connect with Andria:

https://www.andriaflores.com/

https://www.facebook.com/typeAplansB/

https://www.instagram.com/andria.flores/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Hello beautiful. Welcome back to Mom Life Podcast, where we have honest conversations about motherhood, family, shape, resilient, and the realities that shape our life. I'm your host, Maria Friends. And today's episode is one that will resonate with so many gaps. We're talking about splendid families. The joys, the challenges, the growing teams, and the beautiful relationships that emerge when love, patience, and grace lead the way. Joining me today is my cousin Andrea Fifth, author, editor, entrepreneur, wife, mother, grandmother, and someone who has walked the blended family journey from both a child's perspective and a mother's perspective. Andrea shares candidly about navigating divorce, building a successful second marriage, raising four children in a blended household, setting healthy boundaries, speaking counseling, and trusting God through every season. Whether you're currently blending a family, considering remarriage, navigating co-parenting, or simply looking for wisdom on relationships and mother choice, this conversation is full of practical advice, encouragement, and let's dive into this meaningful conversation with your choice. This is mom.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Okay. Hi, Prima. I know that I say this almost with every guest, but yes, again, I'm so excited to have you. I'm so excited to have every guest so far, but I'm really excited about this conversation because I know that the topic today is relatable on so many levels with so many people, especially in this day and age that we're that we're living in. It is a reality. And the topic today is on blended families. Introducing yourself, who you are, and what's your favorite part of motherhood.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Oh wow. Okay. So my name is Andrea Flores. I have been a mom for 22 years, and I am currently and newly in the empty nester stage of life and loving it. Really loving it. I would say though, without question, my favorite part of motherhood is the relationships that I have with my kids. It it truly just gets better and better.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Love the relationships with my kids. I see that on even on your posts, because sometimes you can see things and you can tell if something's genuine or not. But you, when you post about your kids and your grandbabies, you can tell, like there's just this genuine love that comes across. And it's just so beautiful to see. I love to see it. Thank you. Absolutely. What season of life are you in?

SPEAKER_01 3:31

So I am almost 52 years old, have a brand new grandbaby. He's gonna be seven months old this week. My husband and I empty nesters this time last year, and we had just moved to a brand new city at the same time. So a lot of change in the last year. So it's been a lot of change in this season. Uh, but I'm happy. I'm enjoying the transitions and really enjoying the next level of relationships that that's bringing, whether that's between my husband and I, because there's no more kids in the home, meaning that now I have these adult relationships with my children. Um, and then this brand new love that I have for my grandson. So yeah, I'm really enjoying those transitions.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Wonderful. What's something people assume about blended families that you wish they understood differently?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

I think from my experience having gone through it, and also I was a part of a blended family as a child, too. My dad remarried pretty quickly within a year or so. And so I have that perspective as well. So having gone through it then later as an adult, um I would like, I wish people would see that it is not just about the adults that decide to get remarried and start fresh, that these children have also been through divorce and they do not process it the same, their timelines aren't the same. When you have said goodbye in one relationship and you find yourself ready to move on in a new relationship, those kids they didn't say goodbye to anyone. And so there's a lot of raw feelings that they have sometimes, and oftentimes that they don't know how to process themselves. But just because you are starting a new family, they're not leaving the old family behind either. They often still have a very active parent. So there's a lot to consider there between the all those dynamics.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Oh, definitely. Definitely. What are some of the biggest adjustments when blending your family?

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Uh gosh, there's so there's so many, obviously, big and small. Some of them are funny and some of them, you know, a lot more serious and required a lot more time and thought. But I think it goes back to this idea that everyone's on a different timeline. And so expectations that you may have as an adult about like how long it takes to kind of gel together as a family, or, you know, this event or outing or family, you know, gathering that you're gonna have and how dreamy it's gonna be. That's gonna be the time that one of your daughters decides to, you know, have a major meltdown, or you know, even something as simple as taking a family picture, you know, it's just there are so many adjustments all along the way. And frankly, even now with adult children, like that stuff doesn't stop, you know. For example, even with it's my biological daughter that had the grandbaby. And and I watched my husband like to give him the space to adjust to, well, yes, he's a grandfather, but it's not his daughter. And how does he feel about he just embraced it with open arms, you know? But there are things like that all along that you still have to watch for because there are adjustments for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

What advice would you give women entering a blended family who are feeling overwhelmed?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

You know, I really think communication is the key, meaning that you have to keep having conversations over and over again with your spouse. Things that are second nature to you as a parent, for example, may not be second nature to him. His parenting style is most likely going to be different from yours. What you, you know, don't make assumptions at what you think it's going to be like, even in the parenting relationship within the home, or, you know, kind of the rhythm of the day, may be very different than what he is expecting. And keep asking questions because depending on the ages of your children, of course, and you know how to relate to them based on whatever age they are, just keep asking them what they're feeling. I know there's two things that I really tried to cement for my children. One was my divorce was fairly fresh at the time. I was having these conversations with them. They were like six to eight years old. And they asked me one day, which this was way off my radar, but they were like, Are you gonna get married again? Well, I don't know. You know, I really am not even thinking about that right now. But yes, that is a possibility. And so I spent time with them because that was something they were curious about. I didn't brush it off because I wasn't in that place. And I just spent a lot of time with them, helping them understand that if that should happen down the road, that we will only be adding to our family. We are not taking away. If we add a new dad to the family, he's not replacing your father. If we add a new brother to the family, he is not replacing you, my son. A new daughter is not replacing you. We are only adding two. We are gonna go from the three of us to four, five, six, seven, eight, whatever that is, we're only adding two, we're not taking away. And I kept building upon that message as you know was appropriate, how they aged. And then when the time came that I did, in fact, date someone and get married, we had those same conversations. And then the other thing that that I would advise another woman, another mom, would be I told my children, I said, you do not have to like this man or love him, but you do have to show respect to him. And it created a really healthy boundary where I wasn't smashing their feelings if they weren't ready for another man in my life, whether that was in the dating situation or getting married, but that I did expect respect, which I expect them to do with any adult. It's different, obviously, when someone's, you know, merging into your home and all of that. But I didn't squash their feelings and try to make them just get in line, you know, this is the way it's gonna be. And again, I did not want to brush over their feelings, but to let them know that it was okay to feel that way, but they were expected to respect him. And then it left room for us to keep having conversations if there was conflict.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

I love that you touched on boundaries because that goes right into what I wanted to discuss next was just the boundaries and routines. And how do you set those in your new home as one where your children were so used to the boundaries and routines from your other home? That is really hard to do.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

It is very hard to do, and and then you layer on top of that, and so I'll just use our family as an example. I had I brought in a daughter and a son. My husband brought in a daughter and a son, and they are their ages are all stair-step together. So they are all less than four years apart. And so you layer on top of the fact that your children are used to doing things a certain way. Well, now his children are used to doing things a certain way. And on top of that, when we're all together, he and I are trying to find some semblance of uniformity, but but both sets of these children also go back and visit their other parent, where their home rules and expectations and culture inside the home are different. And so when both spouses are bringing children into the marriage, and it, you know, it's not just that he adjusted to my children and they adjusted to him, but then same for his children. And so that's really tough. There are things that you decide you're going to do together now that are new. And we just we tell our kids that, you know, I know that you're used to doing it this way. We're gonna try it this way instead, you know. And then there are some things that you just allow there to be some differences. And that in my experience was some of the stickiest parts, both as a mom and between my spouse and I. So I raised my kids from even that early age when we all started getting together, they were, you know, elementary school aged, to be take care of themselves, but also have a really uh strong awareness of what goes on around them. So, in other words, I expect you to contribute to things in the home. Pick up your own toys, but also, hey, it's dinner time. Let's someone go set the table. Let's, you know, there's things that you do that you contribute to whatever group you're in. Well, my husband and his ex-wife, they really trained their kids to be very mindful of themselves and independent of themselves. Pick up after yourself, bring your dishes to the sink after yourself. Also, very good values, right? But they are slightly different. And when we put that together in the home, and my expectation of contributing, like, hey, here's a here's a laundry basket full of towels, everybody pitch in and fold. Well, my two are used to that. So there's really no offense in being asked, well, his two weren't. You would have thought I asked them to go outside and paint the house the way they look at me. And so there's there's not just this something that you try to figure out with your husband, and then everyone just follows along. But these children are not used to doing things, you know, a different way. And so it, yeah, it's sticky. Sometimes you just have to let them know we're gonna try something new, and sometimes you have to just adjust. And and I'll give you an example of it sounds ridiculous when I look back at this, but all our kids grew up in the same area, and yet their tastes and food, whether it was something we prepared at home or fast food restaurants they like, were very different. And again, I know this sounds crazy, but if we were going to say pick up burgers for takeout one night, well, my kids loved Whataburger, but his kids loved broms. And so it was this big meltdown if we went one place to the other. So for years, we would do two pickups. We would pick up burgers at one place, then pick them at the other. And I, in hindsight, I'm like, I can you not even believe we did that. But it made it's whether you're blended or not, as parents, we all know, right, that you pick your best. And so it made less of a battle for that so that when we could say, look, this is the age of cell phones were starting to come in and stuff. And we were like, look, there's a charging station in the kitchen. We're not taking our cell phones to our beds at night, we're not plugging them in next to our bed. This is where they all go. And that it became easier to enforce the things that really mattered and how it was gonna work for everyone if we could have some give on the things that didn't matter, like where the burgers came from, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

That is so true. That is so true, Andrea. A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Your battles. So, isn't it true that of course there are so many aspects of blending a family that are unique to blending a family? But when you already have mom guilt and you add on to that divorce guilt, which is exponentially bigger. It was for me, divorce guilt was so much bigger than mom guilt ever was. You start to feel like happening in your home with your kids or even with your spouse, that this is all you know related to blending a family and yada yada. But in reality, some of this is just plain parenting, you know, and marriage, whether it was your family of origin or or a blended family.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Sometimes this is just things that come along that you have to work through. Yes, and especially as you grow. How old were the kids when you guys got together?

SPEAKER_01 16:35

So when we first met to start dating, they were between six and nine years old. But we dated for almost two years before we even introduced our kids to each other. One, we wanted to be sure we were secure in our relationship. And then two, we wanted to give our kids plenty of distance from the divorces that they had both been through. So when they first all and we just did it all at once, you know, we he brought his kids and I brought my kids and we all met at a park. And we let them all play together. Of course, they were more interested in each other than they were in this other person. But we we had begun telling our kids, hey, I'm I'm dating somebody, and we so we told them for several weeks or maybe even months about who this person is and what they're like and all that. And then we all got together. And I think this is important to realize if you are in that situation where you are introducing a children to another person and their children or were about to be married, also what's happening with their other parent. So in our situation, my husband and I both dated first before our exes did. We both introduced someone to our children before our exes did, and we both married again before our exes did. Oh, wow. Okay. So a lot of the angst and questions, which then sometimes turns into teenage hostility, what our kids experienced came at us like fiery darts. And a lot of times our home and their relationships with us would be compared to what they had with their other parent. So, for example, what I mean by that is I think at times either set of kids, but I'll use mine as an example, would feel frustrated, like I want all this time with mom, and I need to sit with her and talk with her or go do things with her. And they would feel frustrated that maybe after dinner I'm sitting down to watch a TV show or have a drink with my husband. Well, this is what happens in a in a marriage, in a home, in a family, blended or not, but they hadn't, they're they're young. So they hadn't yet really had that experience. Um, when I was married before, they were so young, they just didn't remember all that. So here they had to kind of fight for my attention in a way when they were with me. But when they would go to dad's house, well, it was just dad and he was single. So they could go to the zoo and go to, you know, everything was about what the kids want to do, even when you're all at home together. And I I believe we saw that on both sides, where there would be some, you know, kind of resentment, like they want, they want to monopolize all of your time and attention. And believe me, we gave them lots of attention, but in a home, in a marriage, you have a spouse too, and you're gonna sit and have conversations with them that aren't, you know, always convenient for them, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

And how is it that you were able to stay connected while balancing the parental responsibilities and navigating through the kids' feelings of you being together in this new relationship?

SPEAKER_01 19:57

To stay connected with my husband. Yes. I'm gonna be honest with you. He and I are and always have been really, really good partners. I am so blessed. We have a fantastic relationship and very good marriage. But the one thing that we would butt heads about always related to the kids and and usually disciplining and how things were managed with kids in the home. And neither my husband and I are fighters, you know, we're we we neither one of us are big on conflict or what have you. But when things would get heated with the kids, that's when we would have conflict. And at one point, we had to have a conversation about look, our relationship is too good to, this was during the marriage, after we had everybody, you know, been married for some time. We're like, I don't want to fight with you over how things are going with the kids. And we decided we would talk to a counselor and learn on purpose how to fight better. And I'm not kidding when I tell you, like, really, we it took two sessions. That was it. We both learned that one, we both are just individuals and that we have our own way of dealing with conflict. And again, I'll just use myself as an example. Like for me, it was to flee. Like if things got too heated, I wanted to go in another room. Maybe I wanted to get in the car, take a drive, but mostly I wanted to get away from the conflict, right? Which is fine if you need to like cool down. But if you don't circle back and talk about it, you didn't resolve anything, right? So, one, we each brought our own traits in, but two, we had been married before. And we found that that without realizing it, we were kind of fighting our exes. You know, he would talk to me in sometimes ways I didn't even recognize because that's the way he related with his ex when they were in. Conflict. And I was doing the same thing. And both of us are very smart individuals, but we did not realize what we were doing. And so, really, truly, in two sessions with our counselor, we're able to identify those things and then talk about then how do we keep from doing that, you know? And we both were vulnerable and said, look, when I'm in conflict, I don't like it. So I want to get away from it. So I, my intention, my best intention is if we start to fight, I'm not leaving the room. And then he would tell me instinct is to raise my voice, but I don't, I know I don't need to raise my voice with you. You know, I don't want to. So my intention, I'm not going to do that. And but we would hold each other accountable, and which is not easy to do when you're already heated, you know. But we gave each other the grace to do it. Of course, I didn't tell it, you know, yell at him not to yell at me, and he didn't holler after me not to leave the room. We just say, hey, it's going that way. This is where we want to be. It changed everything. It didn't mean overnight we suddenly didn't have conflict because we really did, because we had four teenagers at one time, two teenage girls at one time. But it really gave us a place to circle back to if we got away from what we really wanted and intended for our relationship. And that more than anything helped us get through, particularly those teenage years, which again, blended or not, teenage years can be very tough, you know, and blended definitely adds an element of tension to it that you don't necessarily have in a family of origin.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

But it's beautiful that how you said that you sought counseling because there are times when we could be apprehensive to seek support in this who was the first to bring that up and how were you able to convince each other that that would be a great resolve?

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Well, I had started seeing a counselor, which was new to me to do that, to seek help during the divorce process. I felt numb and and in a fog trying to think through not just the divorce process, but being a single mom, all those things. And so I found a wonderful counselor. And so I still see her today when I need to talk to someone. And it may be like we go a year before, you know, that I don't see her, and then something comes up and I can just reach out and we talk. And so, and and my husband was aware of that. And so I think I may have brought it up, but both of us really value mental health and value relationships. Both of us value education, and we both feel like, hey, if there's something we don't know, then let's learn. And in this particular case, the best avenue for doing that is to talk talking to a counselor. And so he was 100% on board. He wanted to talk to somebody specifically about a parenting challenge that really was best done in private with her. And he would see her and talk to her about that. And so she became a very great, you know, wonderful resource, not just for us as a married couple, but so that we could go to her individually or together when we had parenting challenges. It's just the nature of a blended family is there's going to be, you know, there's your ex, if if they move, if they cause problems, if there have you back and deal with legal changes. I mean, all those things. And so to have a counselor, particularly like in our case, where we both were able to see her together or separately, it has just been priceless.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yes. How was your approach to marriage different this second time around?

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Good and bad, mostly good in that I think I had life experience. And so and I did, and I really encourage anyone who goes through divorce, whether you intend to get remarried later or not, it doesn't matter. If you have gone through a divorce, do the hard work of reflecting on where things went right and where things went wrong. And it is never all one person's fault. And so I did the hard work to ask myself what I contributed both to the downfall of our marriage as well as the positive things, because I was determined that if I got married again, I wasn't even sure I wanted to, but if I did, did not want to repeat the same mistakes, you know. And particularly at that point, because I did have children, um, I didn't want to drag my children through another divorce at all, you know. So because this is why I think it's so important you do the hard work, because of that, when when my husband and I did decide to remarry, I felt really prepared for it. You know, and I, kids aside for a moment, I felt as a woman that I knew myself better than I ever had. And because I knew myself, I felt like I could then answer the question about, well, what kind of person is best for me? What kind of person is most compatible for me? And I entered that second marriage, having answered those questions as best as I could at the time, that I didn't know those things about myself the first time I got married. You know, and nor did I have the maturity, you know, at that time either in my 20s to figure all that out, you know, to know that I needed to. So yeah, I think I think going into the second marriage, just speaking as a woman, I knew myself so much better and knew therefore what I wanted. And also from doing the hard work, I was more mature. Then when conflict arose, I could say, Hey, I I think we're repeating the same argument over and over again. Maybe we need to to seek some help with this. You know, I didn't have that maturity before, you know.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

And Andrea, I think that's great advice for women getting into relationships, period, is wanting to go and do the work. Yeah. Because we don't want to continue to carry on that baggage from the past relationships. We want to really go into it knowing ourselves, knowing what we want, knowing what we don't want, because men are simple characters, they're they're simple. You just they need that guidance. And and we as women, like we're the ones to provide that for them. And if we don't know who we are or we don't know what we want, then that's where a lot of I see a lot of conflict happening too, blended or not. Yeah, yeah. What has carried you through the hardest seasons of your life?

SPEAKER_01 29:45

The answer to that in general is 100% my faith, my relationship with God, specifically as it relates to blended families and the complications that arise from that. It has been this big picture mindset for anyone. When you are in the trenches of something difficult, it can be a death of someone in your family or friend. When you are in a really hard time, focus really narrows and you feel like what is happening in that moment, that hard thing, it is very difficult to look past it. Even when you're telling yourself, this too shall pass, I will get past. In the moment it hurts so much, it's so challenging. That's all you see. And I will tell you that there were many times as a mother, as a stepmother and a wife that I felt like that's all I could see was this conflict that was happening. Um and my uh my saving grace and all of that was just this commitment to see it through because particularly, like I said, for us, really the only thing we had conflict about was our children. And so reminding ourselves that this is a season when you're in the throes of parenting, it's so consuming as a mother that it's hard to imagine there's ever going to be a time that you're not a hands-on mother. You're always a mother. But once they're adults and you're not hands-on, it is hard to imagine that, you know? And so I think what really helped when things would get tough in the blended family situation was knowing that this will pass. And I want to see the other side of this, not just for myself. I want to see my children grow and mature through this. I want to see them have healthy relationships, but I also want to get to the other side of this, which is where we've just landed recently that we're empty nesters. And now our parenting relationship with our children has has totally changed because they're adults, you know, and our relationship is has this newness and this freshness to it because it's just the two of us at home, you know, and we made it.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

It's something to celebrate having raised four teenagers together. Yes. Such an accomplishment. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

I don't know, you'd have to ask them what they think about, you know, about all of that. But yeah, I we're very proud we have raised four wonderful children, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

How do you maintain your identity outside of being a wife and a mother?

SPEAKER_01 32:43

I think for me, a lot of that has come in the latter part of my motherhood. And then now, as they've become adults, partly because when they're children, they need so, so much from you and you're giving so much. And that's true even in a marriage, in a relationship, even into your early 40s, where you're still developing and growing as a person yourself. And so you're doing that together now with someone. I've really got to invest more in myself as my children got older, particularly, you know, for you young moms, when once your kids start driving and suddenly are independent, even to get themselves places, it's a bittersweet thing because you do have more time. You're not spending as much time in the car, but also you're missing those conversations and stuff with the kids. You know, it's it's another one of those transitions. But I think for me as a woman, that began to give me a little more independence. Once you become an empty nester, you have a lot more of that. As freelance editor, which I love, love, love. And once my children were driving and needed less of me, I could invest a little more of myself in that to grow that business, which I have also enjoyed, not just the editing aspect, but the entrepreneurship aspect of that. And then, of course, now even more. And so it's giving it's giving for what I love that's not related to anyone else. It's not part of my children's dreams or my husband's dreams, it's mine. And it may have taken a smaller role or a back seat at one point in my life, but that was by choice because I wanted to invest myself and my children in my marriage. And I love it.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Wow. And you you talked, you touched briefly on entrepreneurship. Can you share with us about your books?

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Yes. So I have been an editor, written and published one book. It's a memoir. It's called Type A Plans B. Um, I call myself a recovering perfectionist because during that growth that I mentioned earlier, I did the hard work. I examined how being a perfectionist has both served me and held me back. And so in this memoir, it's actually my reflection on this time that I went through divorce, which I felt like at the time was the biggest failure of my life. And, you know, I had dreams of the whole white picket fence, you know, mommy, perfect wife kind of thing. And obviously that all blew up. And so I wrote this book during that season and immediately after that season in my life. Took a long time to write the book because I was a single mom. And so I was dependent on my own income and had to, you know, make sure I was doing that. And I was also taking care of the kids, you know, quite a bit on my own. And so the book actually ends right as I'm starting to meet Oz, my husband. And you just get a little glimpse of into like dating and stuff. So it it ends right where the blending begins, you know, but it's a backstory, I guess, to how I went from what I thought would be like this perfect life to what's reality, that it's not perfect. And like you asked earlier, you know, it weaves in my faith and how my faith really developed and changed during that time because I had to depend on God in a whole new way. And so, so yes, I published that book in 2020. I'm thinking of writing another one right now, but I'm in the very early, early stages of it. But meanwhile, I am a freelance editor and I edit lots of books, people's memoirs, their fiction, nonfiction. I'm so passionate about.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

Wow. Incredible, incredible. We'll have to make sure we we link your site. Sure. And where else can listeners connect with you and follow your journey?

SPEAKER_01 36:44

My website is a great place to start. It's Andreaflores.com. And then you can find my book, type A plans B on Amazon. There's a link on my website. I have a Facebook page that's Andrea Flores Author Editor, and then on Instagram at Andrea.flores.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Wonderful. Wonderful. I love it. And Andrea, there's so many other questions I wanted to ask and conversations I wanted to get into. Thank you for the conversation. We're gonna have you again, and I I want to make sure that we close with your favorite quote.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

I think the one that has rung most true for me as it relates to parenting and being a mother. Where I first read it was from Gretchen Rubin's book. And it's that the days are long, but the years are short. And that has 100% been my experience raising children. The days are long, but the years are short.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

What a powerful conversation, Andrea Floyd. One of my biggest takeaways from today's episode is the reminder that blended families aren't built overnight. They require patience, communication, grace, and a willingness to keep showing up for one another, even through the difficult pieces. I especially loved Andrea's reminder that families blend, we're adding into the family, not replacing anyone. That perspective alone can bring so much comfort to children navigating change. We also heard the importance of speaking of work when needed. Investing in healthy communication, doing the hard work of self-reflection, trusting that difficult seasons don't last forever. As Andrea beautifully shared, the days are long, but the years are short. What feels overwhelming today is a fighting day from heart, stories, of growth, resilience, and healing. If you'd like to connect with Andrea, learn more about her work, or check out her memoirs, visit her website and follow her on social media. We'll include all of her information in today's show notes. If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your mom, stepmom, spouse, and friend who may benefit from this conversation. Thank you for being part of our mom life community. Remember, motherhood is not about perfection, it's about love, growth, and showing up one day at a time. Until next time, take care of yourself. Extend yourself great and keep embracing this beautiful journey of motherhood. Thank you for listening to mom.