The no normal

One of the hardest things about CSPP for me is that things are never normal. Pregnant isn't normal. New baby isn't normal. Maybe there are a few months where it seems like things might be approaching normalish (although there are always the constraints of nursing) . . . and then you're pregnant again. It's constant, gradual change. You can never get used to your life, because every month your life is markedly different. Today I went to the dentist and I was supposed to list my weight on the form. What to write? X, but Y before I started getting pregnant all the time six years ago, and I'll probably be back there in another five months but who knows because I'm not getting any younger and maybe this is the time I'll stay fat. Or I should say I'm guessing it's X but I don't really know because my husband won't let me have a scale. It was XXX last time I weighed myself but I had a baby a week after that. Maybe I should just tell you the range of sizes I've been through in jeans over the past year?

I can never do anything consistently. I'm in choir every other six months. I'm in this and that and the other group, but my attendance record isn't earning me any gold stars. I show up where and when I can, but since my entourage is usually with me I always end up leaving early without having really participated. I want to do all the things a good pastor's wife should (I know, there is no "should"--but in a small parish, there sort of is), but the only way for it to happen is for Dad to take time off from doing the things a good pastor should.

I really hate this for the babies. It's troubling enough to me to have such an unpredictable schedule. Then, just when they get used to oatmeal for breakfast and reading marathon at 10 and naps at 1 and games in the evening, everything gets all screwed up again. Even if we do crack the books at 10, I've been known to fall asleep mid-sentence (something I would never dreamed possible a few short years ago) depending on what kind of nights the baby of the house is inflicting on me.

I know there's no getting around it, but I still find myself waiting for things to get back to normal. Uninterrupted nights of sleep, clothes with no peculiar openings or elastic, a quick run to the store, eating or drinking whatever strikes my fancy, playing tennis with Dad--it's been so long since any of this has happened, but I just can't stop thinking of them as normal, and some finite distance from when we are now.