Adjustments

Huh...

This living together full-time thing is tough.

I don't know how all the married couples out there have done it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

I kid. Sort of.

In the over seven years that Tom and I have been married, we have never actually been together in the same house every single night of the week.

At first, Alyssa and I stayed at my mom's house just one night a week, starting when A was about 6 months old. The trauma of putting her in the car and driving 65 miles every single day was too much to take.

That one night turned into two and then three by the time Olivia was born.

If the weather was going to be bad, we might have spend four or even five nights away from home.

So this past weekend was the first that Tom was home with us, truly home, with nowhere else to go.

And to be honest, there were some rough moments.

The girls have forgotten what it's like to have him around when he's not just visiting. They aren't used to him being there day to day and actually parenting them.

He's not used to the mess that living causes.

On Sunday, I gathered up protesting girls and left him alone in the house for several hours just because we all needed the space.

When we got home from the grocery store he was outside shoveling snow and putting up a snow fence. The girls joined him while I put the groceries away.

They all came in rosy cheeked and happy. The alone time had done him good.

He mentioned that the house hadn't seemed so messy when he'd 'visit.' I reminded him that when he moved in, he brought 'stuff' with him and hadn't yet put it away.

He gave me a sheepish grin and realized that the stuff that was annoying him the most was his own.

We're going to be okay. But we all have to be a little patient with each other. We all have some adjusting to do. But we're a family and adjusting is what families do. Because we love each other and in the end, we all want the same thing, to be happy, healthy and together. And boy have we got some togetherness going right now.

That's where the adjustments come in. Finally.