Gradually, as we creep into a new year, a new normal is emerging.
It is a completely different normal that we have ever had before.
For 18.5 years, I did everything in our home. I did all the cleaning, all the grocery shopping, all the meal planning, all the laundry, all the homework, all the appointment scheduling, all the school communicating, all the haircuts, all the doctor appointments, all the bill paying. . . There were, of course, instances in which Chad would help out. He likes to cook, and he has always cooked when time allowed. He did the majority of the snow removal. He did some of the lawn care. He did a ton of tickeling, wrestling, and horse play. He listened when our kids spoke and always knew what was going on in each of their lives. He was far from uninvolved. But our tasks were clearly divided. I took care of our home. He worked and worked and worked building his business.
We both liked the arrangement.
In the last two years, as I have been working more and more hours outside our home, I have been feeling more and more incapable of caring for our home and family the way I wish. That is heartbreaking to me. There is nothing I love to do more than the "wifey" stuff.
But I can not do all things.
Thankfully, Chad has recognized my exhaustion and frusteration.
Ever since the house has been complete, he has woken up to make us breakfast daily. (Yep. We have totally spoiled kids who receive a hot, fresh, homemade breakfast daily. I started it as our teens went through huge growth spurts. They truly needed the nourishment. It continues. And it is the one thing Krissy brags about. She fully realizes she is one of the only kids in her class whose parents cook her breakfast every morning.) The fact that Chad has owned a task, is huge!
He has also started taking care of all the after 5 pm carpooling. This makes if possible for me to stay home most days from 4:00 on. I am a home body to the core, and having that extra time at home each day is such a blessing.
We have also figured out a way for me to have some office hours at his business sans Joshua each week. Joshua goes to school each day from 8:00 to 12:30. The original plan was for me to work at church while he was at school, and to complete my church hours from home or with him in my office. I would just do the tasks I needed to do as Chad's bookkeeper in the "cracks" of time I could discover. This did not work very well. We limped along until January - but we were truly limping. I was feeling like a total failure as his employee. So we came up with a compromise. I now work in his office each Thursday morning while Joshua is at school. Then he goes and gets Joshua from school at 12:30, and I head to church. I remain at church until our older kids are done at sports practices sometime between 5 and 6, while Chad has the afternoon with Joshua and drives the 3:00 carpool. This has been HUGE. I can get an amazing amount of work done in the 4 hours I have in his office each week. I am also able to ask all the questions I need to have answered during work hours, making our home a home rather than a business.
I come home on Thursdays totally wiped out. And he has supper waiting.
So, a new normal is taking shape. I am thankful. Truly thankful. I adore Chad bringing me a cup of coffee into the bathroom each morning, complete with my 2 ice cubes, so I can gulp it down quick. I love sharing the household workload for the first time.
We also grieve the old normal. We both loved it. Trying to balance an increasingly busy job schedule with the needs of a family of 7 is difficult. Last week nearly crushed me. The days when I only see our littlest kids for an hour or less make me sad. My heart often feels divided or compromised - which is nothing new to working moms. It is just new to me. In all honesty it is my prayer that someday, God willing, we will return to the old normal of me home 80% of the time. However after purchasing Krissy's Prom dress today, I fully realize it will be a-w-h-i-l-e!
Sigh.
So until then, I am thankful that Chad has chosen to serve our family in new, different, and more specific ways.
(One super funny story to share happened last week. After 6 or 7 weeks of making breakfast every day, Chad was sick of cooking. He came into the family room after I tucked the kids into bed and said, "I think I am turning into some sort of a family chef or butler or something. I actually made an egg bake. An egg bake?! UGH! Life has changed!" We have both laughed and laughed about his egg bake. For years, I have made egg bakes for mornings I know will be especially busy. They are not Chad's favorite. He never complained, but I knew he highly preferred when I cooked. The fact that he sunk to the "low" of an egg bake signifies an all new Chad.)
