November Thankful #22

In honor of Thanksgiving, I'm doing daily thankful posts. I'd love it if you'd join me by commenting here or on MichiGal's Facebook page.

November 22

Today I'm thankful for my family, our little party of six. I grew up in an unconventional family, not that there's anything wrong with that. But as a kid it can be incredibly difficult to explain to friends and teachers why you don't know you're dad and you're living with your grandparents and sharing a room with your mom. Or living with your mom and her boyfriend. Actually nowadays maybe it wouldn't be so difficult, but when I was a kid, anything other than the "normal" two-parent family was completely out of the ordinary. Truthfully I felt like an outcast, always. Add to the family situation the fact that I moved all the time until 7th grade, when we finally stayed in one place until high school graduation, and what you get is a whole lot of awkwardness. There were good things about the way I grew up,  to be sure, but what I longed for was a regular family and a regular home.

Before Chris and I got married we knew we wanted to have children. I myself could not wait to have a baby. I still remember the day when Chris called me at work and suggested it was time to start a family. We had just moved into our first real house and we were feeling pretty domesticated I guess. I made an appointment with my doctor, went off the pill, and poof! was preggers pretty much instantaneously. We were beyond thrilled! I could hardly stand to go to work every day, when I had a nursery to decorate, baby names to brainstorm, and a million baby things to buy. When Bethany was born, it was dizzying how much our lives transformed immediately.

It took us seven and a half years to complete our family. Looking back, it seems so long ago that we had only one baby, and then just two, and then three. But it flew by, much quicker than I could have anticipated. When Connor was born, a lot of people thought we'd automatically be done because we had our boy and our girl. We put the thought of more kids on the back burner, but kept ourselves open to surprises (read: weren't very careful with birth control). Lucy came at the best time, when we were saddened by the loss of my beloved grandma and needed a little light in our lives. And finally, two and a half years ago, we were blessed with Mathilda during one of the most stressful times of our marriage. 

Sometimes it doesn't seem real, that these four little people are my own babies. Other things in life haven't gone exactly as I'd imagined they would, but every single day I feel blessed beyond measure that I have this family. When all is said and done, the importance of anything else pales in comparison. The little stresses of daily life (okay, some of them aren't so little) can't diminish the joy my family gives me. The six of us constitute our own party, wherever we go.