The Return of Sanity

What a difference a few weeks makes! I was at adoration last night and journaling about my present state of mind and realized that the word that came to mind was "quiet". That is pretty extraordinary in all the chaos and high blood pressure over the past few weeks. We had dinner at a restaurant last night with all three kiddos and apart from one "get back in your chair" episode, it turned out to be a very nice meal and we were all able to relax and enjoy eachother's company. Amazingly, there wasn't even alcohol involved. K and I have been having more and more fun and bonding on our days together. I have to admit it, I was skeptical when our social worker told me to "just push through it". To which I asked her what that meant after I had just admitting to her that our time together infuriated me and was not helping the bonding process. She said I needed to keep at it, setting aside time just for the two of us. Instead of dreading a full day with just K, I found myself looking forward to it this week. We didn't do anything amazingly exciting like the past weeks when we went to the Children's Museum, we just hung out, did some errands together and took a long walk chatting and kicking leaves up as we went. It felt normal for the first time in about 6 weeks. Normal, there world I said it, we have returned to NORMAL! (for now at least!)
The craziest thing I have noticed that with the 3 kiddos, we seem to be somehow finding quality time alone with each of them, more so than with just the 2. Maybe we are doing with more intent now or I am just noticing it more, but it is really nice to have the one on one time. Last weekend E2 woke up at 6:15 and it was clear he was ready to start the day, not spend any more cuddling time. So we snuck out of the bedroom to the basement where we had a fun breakfast together while the rest of the crew slept in. Certainly could have used an extra half an hour of sleep, but afterwards, realized how great it was to just spend some time with E2. Now if we could just squeeze some couple time in (don't tell T about the dance lessons I am working on for us! )