A New Normal...for a while anyway

If there is one thing I have learned about "Normal," it is that there is no such thing as normal.
Just as I get life figured out (I think) with baby number 1, we find out baby number 2 is on the way.

 

 

Then, when I have a somewhat handle of babies 1 and 2 a full year after baby number 2 has turned the age of 1, I find out that baby number 3 is on the way. Throw in a move and 2 job changes and new State and I'm rockin' and a realin' trying to find my bearings. I had just completed college and had not been prepared for the "smack in the face" of life.

I'm a routine kind of girl. I like routine. I don't mind messing with my routine, but I need a heads up. I'm guessing that is where baby number 3 got it from. School has been an interesting adjustment for him. We held Good Lookin' back a full year knowing that emotionally he needed another year under his skinny little belt before we started him onto a "new normal." This is my child who didn't go to childcare for my mom's group until he was almost 5. This is my child who when he was the ripe old age of 3 we were told by his pre-K that "he might fit in better somewhere else" because he has screamed for weeks to "go home!" It takes him a looooooooong time to adjust to anything new and if it's not consistent with the same people every time; well, you might as well forget all about it. We decided the teacher might benefit from him waiting another year as well. The first month has been HARD with all CAPS included! The kid has hated school.

Let me just say that this "new normal" for him was hard for me to emotionally grasp....only because I also was, and am somewhat still, feeling overwhelmed with the "new normal" of homeschooling his older sister as well. I feel like I'm wading into new territorial waters of both homeschooling and the pre-teen years that seem to have snuck up on me. The emotional energy at the end of my day is a big fat 0.

But, back to Good Lookin.' After numerous phone calls with the school counselor and some plans put in place where he can have some grasp of routine in his new 300 plus child kindergarten, we are finally, as of yesterday, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

It has been 4 weeks since school started and this is the FIRST day he has said that he "likes" school. He came upstairs with his backpack already on and declared that he was ready to go. It was 6:30am! I had to make him sit down for breakfast or he would have walked on out to the car! Yeah!

I've prayed a lot in the last several weeks. There is nothing more heart-tugging than your child crying, pleading to stay home with you and then point out that his older sister "got to quit school!" How do I explain that she IS STILL doing school and that right now he is exactly where he needs to be. We've prayed together. We've rocked. We've hugged. I've cried with him and yet told him he still needs to go. I think of the times when I have begged and pleaded with God for something to change in my life that I so desperately wanteded to turn out differently, but I think I am that same stubborn the child in His lap. He has been telling me that He has me exactly where I need to be even if I don't see a reason or purpose or where He is leading me.

The "New Normal" will change for all of us. I have to learn and I need to help my children learn to TRUST that God is not going to drop us, fail us, forget us or even purposefully pull the rug out from under us just for "sport."

He's got me exactly where He wants me and I can trust in that.