The New Normal
And just like that, I have 3 daughters. It’s taken a minute, but we are all starting to adjust to our new normal as a family of 5. My older two, which I now affectionately call “the big girls” have taken to their baby like a dream and our only problems arise when they want to put their little faces 2 cm from hers —but unfortunately this puts Josephine directly in the snot-splash-zone during kissing and sneezes.
I was completely prepared for an onslaught of jealousy and behavior regressions, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the big girls giddy with anticipation at every diaper change as to whether Josephine had gone #1 or #2 and how perfectly ordinary they consider it for their baby to spend countless hours a day drinking milk from what Maddie calls mommy’s “boogies” (she can say boobies, she just chooses not to).
Here are some glimpses into my new normal:
If my van or a room is too quiet, my bigger fear is not that someone is up to something, it’s because I’ve accidentally misplaced one of my children.
Loading up my minivan in the torrential rain with all the kids, besides looking like I’m starring in a Honda Odyssey commercial, also makes me feel like I’m on an extreme Japanese game show where I am dodging water while lifting 80 pounds worth of tiny humans as I’m playing Tetris with car seats and groceries.
There is three times as much eating going on in our house as sleeping; someone is always eating and someone is always awake.
Now when my husband has the big girls and I just have only the baby, it makes me feel like I’m on a mini vacation.
The new volume of my life is permanently set to teenage-girls-at-a-boy-band concert level loud with emotions equally as strong.
Our new normal may look a lot like unfolded laundry left on the stairs, standing, one-handed meals, and blurry tutus in motion; but to me it looks like happiness.
