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This year, O’Donohue’s poem doesn’t speak to me about adventure. This year, we’ve got a list, written and stored in our nightstand drawer, of what dreams we’re working toward in 2018. This year’s new beginning is about deliberately shifting from reaction to choice. This year is about thinking of that list of dreams in my nightstand first, and thinking about how my choices bring those dreams closer (or delay them).

I’m holding my breath, looking for a solution. I’m holding my breath as I rub his back until his breath finally deepens and slows When the news seems too impossible to be true, when I can’t read the headlines for fear of being immobilized by the pain summarized succinctly in Times New Roman 24 point font, I hold my breath. Holding my breath means it won’t be this way forever.

We didn’t want a baby we created together to feel like the shiny new model, and our six current sweethearts to feel like left overs from a life that didn’t work out quite as planned. I watch Gabe with his head bent over Caden’s, helping with homework and wonder what it would be like to be a part of a family that doesn’t include divided time and parents with a prefix. We won’t be the oldest parents at the Kindergarten orientation together, or watch our children teach the baby the ins and outs of being a child in this blended, boisterous bunch. We are both cognizant of the risk of displacing our six love bugs and wonder how an ours baby might bring our whole family closer.

Today, many years and frustrations later, when I meet a new stepparent, I share five stepparent secrets I wish I’d known at the start of this adventure. You may not be invited to the Mother’s Day breakfast program at preschool. It’s normal and okay to daydream about a life without color-coded calendars and kids pulled between adults. It’s normal to think about what might have been, if you hadn’t fallen in love with someone who came with a mini-entourage.