Like the Twilight Zone, only louder

Somethings changed.

I'm not sure that it was me, or the kids, or our lives, or Dan, or all of it...........but I definitely notice a difference.

There was a time that I would cry daily people.  Daily- I'm not joking.  Just completely overwhelmed, undernourished (spiritually- obviously not physically based solely on the size of my rear end), over scheduled, and tired.  And all at once that has eased up.

Somehow we are managing to get to places, on time.  AND on the right day.  Now if you know us, you know that this is HUGE.  No matter how much I have tried, in our 'life with children' getting anywhere on actual time (or early- gasp!) was just not possible.  It didn't matter how early I began preparing, what schedule I laid out, or how much I discussed what items would need to be happening in order to be somewhere.  Someone would have a last minute poop issue, wardrobe malfunction or mysterious toothpaste incident and it would throw the whole ball of wax into a tailspin.  Or, heaven forbid, we did actually get into the car within the necessary time to depart, the freakin' gas light would be on.  Or we would show up to wherever and realize the someone in the car neglected to bring shoes.  I'm totally not joking.  More than once this actually happened.

But now we are currently able to kind of leave for places some of the time with most of our sanity and not a lot of screaming.  And we are actually starting to arrive places on time (if not a bit early).

It's strange.  This crazy a$$ schedule that we maintain between church commitments, work stuff, girlscouts, school functions, basketball (which is now over- booyah!), piano lessons and on.and on.and on. has normally kept me in a constant state of sobbing rush around.  But somehow, someway, all at once we are swinging it a little easier.  Sometimes I even have dinner ready in a fashion that doesn't involve 'to go' plates and reminders not to drip in the car for crying out loud.

And I start to think that maybe, just maybe, we are at the age of our family where we CAN do this.

And then I find myself in the preschool drop off line, 8 minutes late, polishing thin mint fudge off of Sam's front teeth with my sleeve and I think maybe we're not as put together as I think.