Merging, or Starting Fresh with Five?

 People in Winnipeg don't know how to merge.  There are only a few places in the entire city where it is necessary, since Winnipeg doesn't have any freeways.  And still, I expect people to get it: If you drive the speed of traffic, that gap is big enough for your vehicle!!  If you sit on the side of the road waiting for a gap at a total standstill, you will never find your opening....and I will be here, stuck behind you (stupid head).

I learned how to merge by necessity.  Bakersfield was a 20 minute freeway's ride away from Shafter, and Bakersfield was where the interesting stuff was happening (don't get me wrong - Shafter's volleyball in Mannel Park, and yearly 4th of July Parade were pretty darn fun, but Bakersfield had a movie theatre!).  If we wanted to get to the FUN, we learned how to merge early in our driving careers.

In relationships, merging is much more complicated because you can, and have to, expect the other drivers to take you into consideration.  It's not just about speeding up and jumping in.  Sometimes you just don't click.  And sometimes you spend so much time looking around at everyone else that you forget what you're supposed to be doing!

Our family is in the middle of merging.  It's pretty distracting, and sometimes difficult...for some of us.  Seamus has no trouble at all loving the newest member of our family.  He just adores the idea of having a baby around to kiss and hold.  Luke is pretty worried what another little brother is going to do to his lego projects, or his complicated maze of train tracks.  Derek has to schedule ten minutes into his lunch time just for saying good-bye to all the little ones.  And I somehow have to work a fourth person into my sleep schedule, my homeschool schedule, my menu planning and laundry...not to mention the current difficulties I have in just walking and sitting and sleeping while pregnant.

I've been using this metaphor of merging as I think about baby #3, and then I found this painting.  I painted it in November 2007.  Everyone on my Christmas list was in the middle of some "New Start", and I was considering painting each of them a unique symbol to represent a new phase of their life.  Kathy had a new baby, Amanda was pregnant, I was pregnant, Sarah just moved to Fresno, Mom had an empty nest, Dad was doing something just for fun (for maybe the first time EVER), Melissa was considering a big move...



Maybe this metaphor is more helpful in considering our family life with baby #3:  A new start.  It's not exactly that this baby has to jump in our busy lives.  It's that we all have to pull the car over to let in a new passenger, and start down the road again - start fresh - with Five.
 

35 Weeks