There is  a show on TV here in America that I have fallen in love with called Modern family. There is a father and mother and two grown children married with their own families. Traditional right? Wrong! The father is in his late fifties to mid sixties. He is married to a young sexy Latina raising her preteen son.

The middle aged daughter is married to a goof ball who has a thing for his step-mother-in-law which comes out at the most inappropriate of times. Rounding of the family is the gay son who is raising an adopted baby girl with his husband. You are guaranteed side splitting laughter as this family comes to terms with all the ways they are different ending always with love and acceptance of what is and not what should be.

So sitting at my thanksgiving table I was reminded of that show. I am very much part of a “traditional “ family but on this day my home was filled with people who were family not connected by genetics but by love, admiration, compromise and acceptance. Present was my newly minted teenage son(13 for six months now going on 30), one half of my two best friends with her husband and her brood (okay so she only has three kids but in this day and age three seems like a dozen to me).

My cousin was there with her two twenty something old kids with a couple of their friends. My big brother who is not a blood relation but always looked out for me while we were in college and could always be counted on to make sure I got home safely after a night of high spirited partying came with his real sister and their respective children.

Now the guest list gets a little interesting. Also in attendance were two ex-boyfriends, one I am really good friends even though we had broken up about four years ago; periodically we get the ‘hots ‘for each other but never at the same time so we have remained just friends with no benefits.

The other ex is my son’s father whom I had broken up with over ten years ago and not under the best of terms. We have had some epic battles over the years about everything that has to do with our son from the poor child’s middle name(Marley which I hated) to child support or the lack thereof over the years. I would not be exaggerating to say I believed that he was the devil incarnate, kin to Lucifer or at the very least on a first name basis with him. The feeling I am sure was mutual.

So why was this bane of my existence present you ask? Before I answer that let me round off the guest list. The last of the guests were my son’s ex-step mother and two half sisters . Confused yet? Talk about a combustible concoction.

The ex-step-mother came along after Lucifer’s spawn and I were no more; she married him and soon discovered that he was no prince charming. I liked her from the day I met her and the fact that she adored my son scored major points with me. After two lovely girls and years of torment she divorced the ‘dark one’. Her kids soon learned what my son had known all his life, a father who doesn’t show up when he says he will and makes promises he doesn’t keep.

The ex-wife and I decided if our children were going to have any kind of relationship we would have to make it happen ourselves because ‘deadbeat’ was not going to make it happen. Even though the girls and their mother live five hours away from us, the kids have seen each three times in the last year and have had a whole lot of fun in the process, we have discovered that we actually enjoyed each other’s company and have become family.

Through conversions with his children the ‘sperm donor’ realized that his children lives were going on just fine without him. He came to the realization pretty quickly that had he better make some changes in the way he related to the women who gave him these kids or he wouldn’t be part of their lives. To be fair he has been is trying harder in the last few months and I in turn have had to do a little attitude adjustment of my own(a lot!). We are actually civil to each other and haven’t said one mean thing to each other in the last 6 months.

So on this day of thanksgiving there were no fireworks, we all behaved ourselves ,the adults at any rate. We fellowshipped with each other, there was a lot of loving, acceptance and compromise. We all eat way too much and I actually took a turn on the dance floor with the young man who owns my heart(13 going on 30) the man who will always be a friend(and a nice wet dream once in a while) and the man who was once my first love.

Who is in your modern family?