Forging a New Family

In just 24 hours it will be three weeks since we received the awful phone call. I sometimes picture that moment when I sat up in bed, confused with sleepiness, and said hello. It was a flip of a switch moment. There's our life before that phone call, and our lives after, and little seems to be the same. It's unsettling to think that life can change so radically in an instant.

BUT with the help of our phenomenal friends and neighbors, we are moving ahead and squirming and elbowing and hollering our way into life as a family of seven. Yikes. Well, technically it's not a household of seven until Sid gets home tomorrow from St. Cloud State.

Every few days a meal arrives for us courtesy of the people from our kids' school. Wow. Last week, our good friend Lynn flew in from NYC to help out. She was a godsend--we got so much done while she took the kids out to the park, went on picnics, made worm houses, and rescued a baby bird our cat tried to kill. The kids are still talking about Lynn!

We are swimming in paperwork and appointments: doctors, dentists, kindergarten screening, counselors, victim's services, family protection, and attorneys. And we're adjusting our belongings and expectations to accommodate our small herd of kids. Yes, we now have a minivan. Hmm. Didn't see that one coming. And we bought a bigger house--well we are trying to buy a bigger house. The inspection was a bit distressing so we're working through that with the seller. We've also had our share of happy news, such as Vince getting into Burroughs (our community school that had a long waiting list) for kindergarten next year.

Little by little we chip away at what would have seemed an insurmountable challenge had we had time or wits to think about it. There's no preparing for this kind of thing, so we look about five minutes into the future at a time. So how will I ever figure out summer plans? I'm terrible at that kind of thing under the best of circumstances. I need an assistant who can do "calendaring"--ugh, I hate that word (is it a word or just business-speak?).

Vince and Isabella are fantastic. They are going to bed with little trouble and behave like normal four and five year-olds. Well, is it normal to want to eat every 30-60 seconds? They are looking forward to moving to a bigger house, so we can have a bigger yard with a swing set and so Vince can get a pet of his own--a newt (it could be worse).

The other evening Jon went in to comfort Vince who said he was really sad. We're trying to get him to differentiate his feelings more because he seemed to call everything sad, so Jon asked if he was sad or scared, and he said both. Jon asked what he was sad about, and he didn't want to say what it was. Jon was persistent and finally Vince said, "I can't tell you cuz I'm not supposed to miss my dad, am I?" Jon assured him that while what his dad did was scary and bad that it was normal and okay for Vince to miss him. Then Vince talked for quite a while about his dad and that he was in a cage now and asked if he was wearing orange clothes. Guess he's seen a few cop shows. Whew--we never know what's going to come up.

Eli and Annika have been amazing. Eli is definitely the big brother now, trying to make sure everyone knows the rules (and is duly chastised for not following them). Ani is happy to have a playmate and another person in the house who has to get her hair done in the morning but not always happy when I accidentally put Ani's clothes on Isabella. All four of the kids ran around playing in the yard today for about two hours, and only needed my intervention a couple times. It was fun to see them cooperating and creating the games together (something about a huge nest of eggs, kissing trees, and a giant web in the back yard--literally!). They're all trying to stake out their territory to some extent, and we've had to invoke numerous time-outs and coax many apologies, but they're a lot of fun and all very sweet. It's nice to have four little people to kiss goodnight and to hug in the morning.

Thanks,
Michelle & Jon