The New Normal

10:49 p.m. That was the time on the clock tonight after I'd read the last bedtime story, said the last "sleep tight," given the last goodnight kiss and closed the last bedroom door to bring an end to my day with my offspring. 10:49. Welcome to my world.

Granted, Wednesday nights are slightly out of the norm for us (emphasis on the word slightly). And the onset of summer has imbued me with a breezy, relaxed, bordering-on-reckless feeling of liberation that has caused me to abandon any semblance of a routine, let alone a curfew for my progeny. "10:00--it's the new 8:00!"

But even on normal days (hmmm, what does "normal" even look like anymore?), the hands on the clock are inching toward 9:30 before it even occurs to me that we might ought to start wrapping up our family activities. I recall a few nights ago that I actually got everyone settled for the night by 9:00, and I remember thinking that I had a whole HOUR to do whatever I wanted (a voice in my head still insists that bedtime is 10:00 p.m., even though I haven't seen lights out at that time since probably somewhere around 1981).

It has been interesting to see how the kids have finagled their way into a later bedtime. The modus operandi of Tyler and Peyton is very similar: They will go upstairs where I assume they are preparing for a period of nocturnal slumber, only to discover half an hour later that they are lolling on their beds, fully clothed, reading books and completely oblivious to the lateness of the hour. Darcy, on the other hand, takes another tack. Whether or not it is a stalling tactic, Darcy transforms into Chatty Cathy at night. I can't say that I'm bothered by this development because Darcy used to be the most taciturn of the four (can you imagine anyone ever saying that of Peyton? Or Sawyer??!), and she is usually the quickest to finish with her nightly rituals, but she is also typically the last one to close her eyes. She tricks me into forgetting how late it is because she'll come downstairs in her 'jams with her hair freshly washed and ask if I want to play a game, and the next thing I know it's going on 10:00 and she's sitting there all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, batting her eyelashes at me and begging to play "just one more game."

And then there's Sawyer--oh, Sawyer! The things he gets to do that his older siblings never dreamed of doing, like staying up 'til 10:00! Where's the justice??! Actually, I can't remember a single time that the kids have complained when Sawyer has stayed up as late as them--I told you, it's the new normal!--but for all the times they've grieved the perceived lack of fairness in their lives, I have to say, this would be one area in which I would have to agree with them if they chose to make it an issue. Then again, just about the time those playgrounds in the mall started getting fun for Sawyer, the other kids outgrew them so Sawyer really missed out on that whole experience--where's the fairness in that??!

So I'm adjusting. I might not always like it, but I'm learning to accept it. My blogging time has taken a serious hit, as you may or may not have noticed; the other day I matter-of-factly mentioned to Randy that I hadn't scrapbooked in, what, a year? I wondered aloud when I might find the time to do that again. Randy captured the essence of our current life succinctly when he put it this way: "Do you want to have a blog or do you want to scrapbook?" There is a project that I am working on for the women's ministry at WW and he took it one step further and said, "Do you want to scrapbook or do you want to work on that project?" At this point in my life, these are choices I have to make because I simply can't do it all.

I don't say that to complain, although some days that's really all I feel like doing. I want to be able to do it all. And perhaps one day I'll have time to scrapbook again, and I'll be able to blog as often as I'd like, and I'll have phone conversations that aren't punctuated by the sound of me covering the receiver and whispering, "I said you could have a granola bar, not an ice cream bar!" But I'm willing to bet that that day is going to come much sooner than I'd like; no, I'm not willing to bet--I know it for sure.

So for now, I'll take the late bedtimes and the conversations and the sharing that seem to come more easily in the stillness of the night. I'll take the fatigue I feel as I unfold my spent frame on to my son's bed at the end of a long day, because the reward for my weariness is the feel of his long, slender fingers twining through mine as we prepare to pray together. I'll take the procrastination of my two sweet girls because I know that in this moment, after the chaos and turmoil of any given day, I can send them off to sleep with a recitation of "nice things" which take their hearts and minds back to a simpler time when life wasn't so complicated. I'll even take my preschooler staying up an extra hour (or two!) because I know that NO MATTER WHAT, I will leave his room with a heart so full of love I think it just might burst, and no matter what time he goes to bed, I know he will wake up and come bounding downstairs with an exuberance for the start of a new day that never ceases to put a smile on my face. (He gets that from his dad.)

I think I'm going to like the new normal.