My third child was born on 1/1/2010.  I should also call him my last child because I don’t plan to have anymore.  His birthday, for me, was very auspicious.  Edward was born on the day that signifies New Beginnings for many people.  He is in effect my New Year’s Resolution. 

For this reason, I thought about calling this post a new beginning, but really his birth felt more like a completion of something (my youth, my childbearing years, my reproductiveness), and not a beginning, let alone a new beginning.  Perhaps, I could consider this a new chapter in my life, but it isn’t really.  I’m already in the process of raising 2 other children, so his birth, in terms of child-rearing, is a continuation and not a beginning. 

The one thing that his birth definitely signifies for me is the need get back into shape.  It seems so cliche to have a New Year’s Resolution related to weight loss.  I’m not a big shopper.  It’s just isn’t my thing, but I always pay attention to advertising.  I sometimes stop watching a show that I like if the advertising seems geared toward a demographic that I don’t think I belong too, think AARP commercials.  Beginning the week after Christmas, a significant amount of advertising dollars are geared toward New Year’s Resolutions.  Based on my unscientific monitoring of advertisements, I’d say that most people are resolving to lose weight/get into shape, stop smoking, find the love of their lives, or get organized.  I’m hardly unique in my endeavor.

That’s is why I’m calling this post a rebeginning.  It’s not a new beginning or even a resolution.  I’ve lost weight, trained for and completed centuries, triathlons, and 5k’s.  So this should be easy, but …

Mark, my husband, said to me the other day that he couldn’t wait for things to get back to normal around our house.  By that he means that I go back to work and our lives go back to our more normal, hectic routine.  But we’ll never have our old normal.  We’ve added another person to our family who has additional needs.  We’ll now have a new normal which of course means that I’m rebeginning a process in a new context, a new normal.