Would I have ever in my life thought it "normal" to live with a child with HIV, or seizures, or ADHD, let alone 3 children who share all of these and more? Or could you ever think it "normal" to live the life of a foster parent, where one minute you are a single woman making plans with friends and the next you're taking a call for a 3 day old baby to be dropped off at your home in a matter of hours? Or is "normal" waking one day to find that your nine year old child, who takes dance, and rides bikes, and runs and plays, all of sudden can't walk anymore, can't stand up, needs to be dressed and taken to the bathroom and helped into bed?

This is slowly becoming our new normal. My arms are beginning to ache with the daily carrying of my lovely 62 pound girl. (Crazy to think that I've lost more weight than that and it's so hard to carry her!) My mind reels with what to tell the doctors the next time I talk to them. I am beginning to think of next week and the next and how to now figure out a rehearsal dinner that begins at 7pm, when she is most likely completely devoid of feeling in her legs. Of a wedding that she was to be my "date" for that doesn't start until 5, and how her legs with "start" during the ceremony, not to mention the reception. How every morning I now wake and plan my time according to getting her out of bed and dressed and to and from each activity while still getting myself and the boys ready as well. How I don't know that we can go back to our Wednesday night church activities because Olivia can't walk let alone dance on the worship and dance "team." How I'm planning our nights at home because how would it look to carry a 9 year old around at the movie theater or a restaurant or a store or... And how this is becoming routine. How I'm not looking at days when this will be gone, because I don't have any hint that it is going away.

It's our new normal.

And I'm not sure I like it.