A New Us

As I write, these three...

seem to be playing a very complicated game together. It involves Yenenesh making Meron and Melese sit in two different spots and then take turns switching. There are varying degrees of compliance. If I am understanding it correctly, they are taking turns sitting on a waterwing and playing with the toy vacuum. Their play is often like that lately.

One of the two girls bosses everyone around and enforces rules. It is interesting to hear myself coming out of their mouths.

I hear a lot of "Do you think you need to sit down and think about that for a while?" and "I'm really really late! We have to hurry!" Yup... I say those things a lot. There is also a lot of pretending to be babies. Two of the kids start to pretend cry, and the other strokes their backs and says, "Honey it's okay." About as much sweetness as you could ever want.

I have also heard the less flattering "Oh for Gosh SAKES!!" a few times, as well as "I'm really tired and crabby!" once or twice... but I think I'll blame that one on Nathan.

I was so afraid, before Yenenesh and Melese came home and for a month after, that we wouldn't ever get our 'groove' back.

That tightness that comes from being a family who loves each other. Knowing all the same songs and doing the same actions, laughing at old inside jokes, all getting excited for popcorn soup night and not feeling like you need to tiptoe around each other or keep on the mask you wear around people who aren't in the club.Nathan and Mer and I, we were an us.

And then when we added two more people to the family, it was hard to find us again. We couldn't do all the same things for Meron that we used to. We couldn't make her the absolute center of the universe and the only person in the spotlight.

These two deserved to be in the center, too.


But it was so hard! That cohesiveness wasn't there and it left all of us off balance and upset. I felt so guilty about what I had taken from Meron.
Slowly but surely, it is coming together. I am starting to feel like we have given much more to her than we have taken.



Yenenesh and Melese have learned all of our songs and have taught us some new ones. We still laugh at the old jokes, but have added more to the repertoire. We are becoming a whole family instead of an us with some thems.
And it feels right... having a new us.