Denver Diary Days 27 and 28: What is normal?

So over the past few days as things have started to get better with Cade, Eric and I have been saying that our days seem "almost normal."  So that got me to thinking...what is normal, anyway?!  I mean, we all think we have our own normal...we go through our days doing what we think we should, usually keeping things basically the same.  And we figure out what we need to do to keep ourselves and our families "normal."

Normal for us isn't always the same.  I mean, I think we consider normal being that we will need to keep things minimally chaotic and make sure we have plenty of time for transitions.  And we know that we'll need to get plenty of activities in for Cade's sensory diet in order to make him more settled.  And we figure that we'll probably field a couple of meltdowns throughout the day, and try to redirect.  And certainly I will be digging Kai out of something he isn't supposed to be in to!

But although we can usually count on all of these things, I just wonder what we really consider to be normal.  Life certainly isn't what we expected, that's for sure.  And although we grieve for the life that we thought we would have - being the parents we expected to be - it seems that we have just settled in for the long haul.  And it's a haul that we've become familiar with, one that we've even embraced (at least most of the time!).  And even though it isn't always easy there are certainly always rewarding parts to it all. 

So today normal for us was a grouchy little 4-year-old, fielding a few meltdowns this morning, a calm evening with a sleeping child, and then feeding that same child a pb&j at midnight!  And I'm sure tomorrow there will be a new normal.  But I think that's not really a bad thing.  I think having our normal be different keeps us on our toes.  And it certainly keeps us always looking up -- which certainly cannot be a bad thing...

This is how Cade spent the entire afternoon...his "nap" turned into all-out exhaustion and he slept until just before midnight, when he woke up starving!  And now we're trying to get him back to bed...oh, the joys!!