hannah and caroline and me
(the last one before we add another name to the list)


this blog's kind of gone off the rails the last few months, hasn't it?

for all that's been said and done about this being a love letter of sorts to my girls that will one day be handed the keys to this kingdom, there haven't been many them related updates in a while. the "bill and tom" series has taken front and center and, while fun, sports and nothing but sports has never really been what this place is all about.

sure, sports makes up, always has and always will, a large portion of HACATLKAM, because sports makes up a large portion of me. but, where have the church updates been? where have the updates on the family or something silly that has happened to one of the girls been? where are more posts about the boondocks or lost or something stupid i read on facebook that one time?

well, all of that has been kind of muddled.

i feel like, for the last few months, my life has been on shuffle. i wake every morning with no idea what song is going to be playing. am i going to be in a good mood? a bad mood? how long will it take one of the girls to say something completely innocuous that will end up setting me completely off simply due to my being primed to be pissed off in the first place?

things are happening fast. we are about to be a family of fucking five, bro. FIVE!!! i still don't have any idea what that is going to mean. we don't have cars for a family of five. we don't really have a house for a family of five. hell, we still don't even have a name for the fifth yet! what are we doing? or, moreover, what have we done?

it's silly. for nine months now, we've been skipping along not really preparing for much to change. i mean, we know, know that things are changing. sarah's belly isn't getting bigger and bigger for nothing. but our routines haven't been evolving with a focus towards us adding another baby to the family. they've just been evolving with a focus to being even more busy than we ever were.

sarah's stressed at work. i've been asked to be more proactive in the community for my store, networking and creating referral based relationships with other businesses for the first time in my life. hannah's playing (and i am coaching) soccer again this fall, committing us for two nights and one saturday morning of each of the last six weeks. caroline's doing gymnastics on monday nights at the same time humc is still rocking the green and playing softball out at trussville. i'm now running over 20 miles a week. we've eaten dinner at home as a family, like, once in the last month (i am pretty sure this is not an exaggeration). even though i am backing off and away from my many roles at the church (which feels fantastic!), sarah can't really afford to yet, because ncd still has eight years to go and the children's place (in spite of some pretty nasty behind her back scuttlebutt to the contrary) can't afford to not have her leadership. we've got fajita fridays and falcons season tickets and etc. to boot. we try and find time to let the girls be girls, but, most of the week, they are caught in their parents' current, being swept away to whatever commitment we've made for them next. trying to breathe it all in at one time feels like being congested. you can get the breath down and you're still making it all work, but it feels like it takes a lot of effort and sometimes it's really fucking uncomfortable and snotty. and so, since we have all this shit figured out, we're going to go ahead and add a fifth dimension to the o'kelley universe.

in some ways, it feels like we are idiots.

in most other ways, it just feels like this is what families do.

it's no real surprise that life skips by in the blink of an eye. we do it to ourselves. our commitment calendar in the paragraph above? that's every family. even though it sounds like i am, i am not complaining. we signed up for everything above with not one gun placed to our heads. we did it. we wanted it. and now we've got it.

so, we deal with it.

hannah and caroline are about to be big sisters, together for the first time. they've already mastered the first step, which was to move into the same bedroom. not one complaint from either, they've jumped into their literal and figurative bunk beds and they are ready for their baby sister to come. i am sure they are more ready for her than us. hannah's going to be incredible. we already know that. caroline wants to hold the baby and feed her and call her sleeping beauty, which, to be fair, is as good as anything her parents have come up with so far. the girls, if nothing else, are a daily example to just roll with the punches, man "mommy". have some "chocolate milk", go "i'm gonna color this picture" and get ready for the next "iCharlie". life comes at them fast, too. they don't bitch much. they just live it. there's a lesson there.

hannah and caroline and the little kumquat and me will change again as soon as the kumquat arrives. it always has. it always will. in many ways. i'm excited for some new subject material. i'm excited to freshen this place up again soon with new ideas and new adventures that come with being a father of three.

there will still be some more "bill and tom". there will definitely be some whining about sports. but, i hope, hope, hope that there will be even more of the other, "the other" being come what may.