Family of Five
It's slowly dawning on me (these things usually take me a while...) that our family will soon be a family of five. As exciting as this sounds, it does come with its challenges. For example, tonight we had burgers on the grill, potato salad, and corn on the cob. I couldn't bring myself to pay the price for four ears of corn this early in the season, so I bought two and we split them. As I divvied things up for supper, the thought crossed my mind, "This won't work in a while--how do you split two cobs of corn five ways?"
Or there's the question of space. How do you accommodate five people in an 1100 sq ft apartment? We needed a little more space to store clothes for Cora, so we're using a dresser from my parents' house. A wonderful addition, but we spent the bulk of the afternoon re-arranging our furniture and possessions to make things fit. I'm happy with the end result, and we ended up with more space than I anticipated, but the thought still looms large: how do we make this work with five of us? It's in the little things: there are only four coat hooks by our back door. Our table has four sides and seats four people. Our car has two bucket seats in the middle, and a bench in the back (guess where the boys will be riding by the end of the summer...). Everything changes with that number 5.
And yet, I can't wait. Tonight after our walk, I looked at our shoe mat by the door. It had four pairs of shoes, all in a row. It just didn't look right. Something was missing. So I made an addition, for inspiration's sake. I've been smiling ever since. For as much as it might change things and inconvenience some aspects of life, I think we've always known someone was missing from our little family. We've always been a family of five at heart.
Or there's the question of space. How do you accommodate five people in an 1100 sq ft apartment? We needed a little more space to store clothes for Cora, so we're using a dresser from my parents' house. A wonderful addition, but we spent the bulk of the afternoon re-arranging our furniture and possessions to make things fit. I'm happy with the end result, and we ended up with more space than I anticipated, but the thought still looms large: how do we make this work with five of us? It's in the little things: there are only four coat hooks by our back door. Our table has four sides and seats four people. Our car has two bucket seats in the middle, and a bench in the back (guess where the boys will be riding by the end of the summer...). Everything changes with that number 5.
And yet, I can't wait. Tonight after our walk, I looked at our shoe mat by the door. It had four pairs of shoes, all in a row. It just didn't look right. Something was missing. So I made an addition, for inspiration's sake. I've been smiling ever since. For as much as it might change things and inconvenience some aspects of life, I think we've always known someone was missing from our little family. We've always been a family of five at heart.
