>As I mentioned in my last post on being home again, we were braced for the worst of adjustment. Worries about attachment issues and searing jealously floated through our brains. We braced for a tsunami of hard issues. And it didn’t happen.

Oh Ho Ho.
Yet.

Yup, we got there! This past weekend it all fell out.
Fallout.
Big time.

And you know, in a way it’s a relief because now, it totally does feel like real life. Just like the water flooding and pouring through our lights, our basement fridge going out and the dishwasher busting for good. It’s real and it happens. And this past week we were building up to it all. I was sick most of the week, not in bed but not anywhere near top speed. Then my two of my daughters started getting sick, one was down for the count this weekend.

So, let’s review: we were sick. And tired. And hey, hormonal, so that is enough to provide the recipe for it. Crankiness abounding in all.

We had a tough cranky weekend, ok, mostly Saturday.

Saturday, we tried to get the house more in order and tackle the big nasty chores (ref: nasty broken fridge). Much grousing going on.

Saturday my four year old, Little Man, looked at the baby and said “we need to send him back.” AHHHHH. There it is. Yes, we had been waiting for that one. I smiled. I said, “ya think?” He said, “yes.” I said, “um, we can’t. He stays. God brought him and when God brings us a kid they stay.” He said, “Can we go swimming?”

Don’t get all shocked now, people. It’s classic. It’s textbook. And if you have a family with more than one child, it’s gonna happen. It happened before. More than once. When my eldest finally realized his little baby brother was NOT leaving anytime soon, oh 16 years ago, he looked at him, looked at me and said “he should sleep in the trash can”. Hmmm. Sibling rivalry anyone? Um, yeah. Happily enough, they are still close best friends even now in those rocky teen years.

So I’m not looking for any long term issues by a four year old realizing the baby is here to stay. And yes, again, we told him, um, nope, we can’t send him back. He’s here for good. And yes, not 10 minutes later they were playing with cars together on the floor. Such is the life of a child: Fleeting, intense feelings.

Cranky. Grouchy. Fleeting intense feelings. Fallout. That was Saturday. A riptide of pushes and pulls, this way and that by many needs and people and feelings. Hard.

But.

By the evening. As it calmed and we sat outside for dinner and decided to be lazy after, it fell-in (so to speak) again. Things gelled again and all that cranky out of sorts-ness ebbed away.

It was the popsicles. Gabriel was just fascinated with the popsicles. So we gave him a bite. And oh, that was a surprise and how can you not just laugh at that face, those expressions, that first experience? Too funny. Too good. So, maybe he’s not ready for popsicles.

But we are ready for him.
Fallout or not.
Because fallout eventually falls in.
Every time.

So we are diving in.
Because that’s what you do in a big family.
It’s all you can do anyhow.

So come on in, the water is fine!

Just to clarify, per Booboo’s complaint that the pics don’t make sense: the top pics are of the big boys doing the nasty chores: cleaning out the fridge on the fritz and the resultant slime. Eeew.