What's Changed Since Baby #3 Arrived? Everything.

Photo Credit: Don Bringas

It's been three months since my third child arrived and here are a few observations and realities now that mine is a family of five.

1. The world is built for families of four. There are two top tables. There are four top tables. Never do you arrive at a restaurant and find they are putting a two top and three top together for your family. Planes with two seats on one side and three seats on the other side of the aisle aren't designed for a family of five. One parent loses massively when on the three seater side, sandwiched between two children who surely only want the very things you can't reach while the "Fasten Seat belt" sign is on. And it's ALWAYS on. The only thing designed for families of five are minivans.
2. Instead of having one child in the bathroom with me, I now have two. One on my lap. Yes, on my lap. And one who hands me toilet paper. I assure you the toilet paper handler isn't a helper. Just a handler of all things in all bathrooms. 
3. Someone is always sick. Always. The day we brought our third home was the day we learned Hand, Foot and Mouth was going around our son's school. That should have been an indication of what was to come. The day our daughter recovered from a cold we learned our infant had a respiratory infection. The day our son recovered from a 24-hour stomach bug, our daughter had it. And then my husband. And then me. And then my father. And then my mother. And then....well....someone got something else.
4. Books have "lost" pages. And by lost, I mean that when reading to our kids at night, I often "accidentally" turn several pages at a time to shorten a 30 page book into something closer resembling 15 pages because there's still a child who needs something even after two of them are in bed.
5. Chips and a fruit squeezie constitute a meal. 
6. When out in public it's easy to spot which child was the most difficult to get out the door because that's the child who looks homeless or at the very least, not particularly cared for.
7. "The two of you need to work things out on your own" lesson has started earlier than our children can comprehend because it's so much more convenient than actually parenting.
8. We throw money at problems. In order to avoid taking our older (he's four) son's kindness and patience for granted, we've started giving him an allowance for helping get his sister ready in the morning. (Follow-up to #6: This is where I have clued you into the fact that she's the one who tends to look the least cared for.)
9. The bar has dropped. And I mean dropped like you when you would do the Limbo and there was just no way you were getting under that stick. Yes, that's the level to which I've lowered the bar of expectations for most things. Instead of failing each day, I tend to over achieve. It's a much better approach to life when outnumbered.
10. At the end of each day, after tucking them in at night, I immediately start to miss them.