I remember the first time David and I had all three kids in the car for the first time a couple of months ago. I hesitantly looked behind me knowing that once I turned around, the full reality that we were a family of 5 would hit me. And hit me it did. I looked back at Nathan and William (engaged in some sort of dispute over I don’t know what) and saw the once empty spot where there was yet another car seat with an actual baby in it. I slowly turned back to the front and looked at David out of the corner of my eye and said, “We have a lot of kids, Dave.”

I must say the feeling was not pure joy and bliss and all things pretty and bright. It was more of a terrified and shocked kind of feeling as though someone had just dropped a new baby on us without any warning. I thought to myself that I would never adjust. Never feel comfortable with 3. Never get to the point where I felt I could handle life.

I am very relieved to say that I have reached that point. I don’t know how or when it happened, but it did. Not only did we all adjust, but we did so with amazing ease. It was almost effortless how easily Colin settled into our family. I can’t even fathom what life was like now before he arrived. I find it strange how strangers and new parents in the doctors office now ask me for parenting and new baby advice when they hear I have three kids. How did that happen?!?! I find myself becoming more and more zen the more kids we have. Maybe I just love being a mother and having kids. Or maybe having 2 very rambunctious boys has mellowed me out just for the sake of preserving my own sanity? Maybe I just seem zen but it’s really just that those raw nerves have been exposed so frequently that I now have a higher threshold. Whatever the reason, I am thankful for it.