Normal (!!!)

This past week was so normal. And that's a new feeling. It hasn't felt less than a pedal-to-the-metal, just-holding-it-all-together since...well at least since before Christmas. Maybe Thanksgiving? Maybe the end of September? Maybe since Felicity's birth last April? Tim's work is still, and probably forever will be, crazy. It's been said before, but this is a good thing. We want him to have lots of work. Keeps us in a cozy warm home with the ability to shop at Costco like we're preparing for the seven year famine. AND speaking of cozy and warm, the weather even warmed up to above the teens. The girls played OUTSIDE!

It's normal because maybe we're finally getting the hang of being outnumbered. Three against two, or more often than not, three against one. Miriam, at four, is suddenly feeling grown up so that's probably something. Wants to only take showers. Wants to walk at the grocery store, not be strapped in next to her sister. Wants to be the one to feed Felicity. Wants to put away her own clean clothes pile and sort the silverware out of the dishwasher. It's all helpful and full of more milestones we didn't see coming. When will we stop being the parents wearing blinders who can't see anything but what we're dealing with at this very moment? Probably when we're not explaining that food doesn't go on the floor and please don't attempt to wipe your own bottom and don't eat glue and how did this library book get destroyed by a nine month old and why is there half a roll of toilet paper still on the roll in the toilet? Perhaps our definition of normal is shifting and we've become more comfortable with the funniness of children?

All of this is to say...it was a good week. Mom and Dad even got a date to a brand new brewery nearby with Aunt Nichole and her boyfriend, Joe.

We'll happily take more of this normal. Amen? Amen.