At 6:36 Monday evening, I packed a whole lot of family fun into a single, under-140-character Tweet:

<span class="entry-content"> "We're parents again w all 3 home: 1 has a fever, 1 is stressed about camp homework &amp; 1 tasted the marinade the raw chicken had been in."</span>

Yes, all of these things happened, and they were made even more stark by the fact that in an instant we had gone from being a young married couple without kids to being a full-fledged family of five. Boom. Three kids all up to something at once, all while we're trying to get dinner on the table, of course.

"Mama, can you take my temperature? I think I have a fever."

"Mama, when I think about my camp I feel <em>stressed</em> because there's so much work. All we do is work."

And then this, from Jason who stood at the grill cooking chicken: "What did you just taste? Out of THAT bowl? The one that just had the raw chicken in it?!? Go gargle with mouthwash and wash your hands."

"Welcome back to parenthood," I said to Jason. He did one of those explosive laughs, just barely managing to keep his beer in his mouth. The whole scene was suddenly very funny, the way life is when you only have two choices: laughing or yelling (or maybe three choices, if you include crying).

This transfer of kids happens every week. It's one of the necessary evils that comes with divorce, and I should be used to it by now. My standard line has long been that it takes some time for the girls to transition from one parent's house to the next, but I'm beginning to accept that maybe I'm the one with the transitioning issues. It makes sense, if you think about it. They're always kids with parents, regardless of which house they're in. The backdrop changes—different stuffed animals and pajamas come into the picture—and the rules and expectations shift slightly, but not much.

For us, as parents, it's feast or famine. We're either in full parenthood mode, or we're completely stripped of our parenting responsibilities and privileges.  We're either desperate to find a sitter so we  can sneak away for some time together, or we're looking sadly into the girls' empty bedrooms as we go to bed at night, saying how much we miss them.

I suspect it's partly this anticipation of their return that messes with my emotions when they actually <em>do</em> return. I'm so happy to have them home that I feel extra guilty when, 15 minutes later, I have the urge to go lock myself in the bathroom for a while. There are suddenly so many questions, so many needs, so much noise—and so many random pairs of shoes lying around. It's a lot to adjust to all at once, without the luxury of being able to ease into it like a cold swimming pool.

But in the end, the plunge approach is not only the only option, it's probably good—shocking in a way that makes you want to yelp, but exhilarating in the kind of way that's a reminder of how very much alive you are. And it's in life's messiest, yelping-est moments that we're able to recognize grace most clearly, and are able to creatively extend it to each other, too.

Almost exactly two hours after my first Tweet that evening, as the girls were upstairs getting pajamas on and brushing teeth, I left this post:

<span class="entry-content">"J found a long lost bag of water balloons in the basement &amp; filled them up. For 20 min we forgot all our homework &amp; salmonella worries."</span>

<a href="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/img_1269.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-44" title="img_1269" src="http://www.halfwaytonormal.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/img_1269-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="415" height="311" /></a>