(4) Shhhh… you’ll wake them up!

As you can probably imagine, life in one room for 3 young boys and two relatively young parents (right at 30), gets to be overwhelming. As a firefighter, Jake works 24-hour shifts (6am-6am) so finding time to have “alone” time with his schedule was a bit difficult. Well lets be honest, it was downright impossible! Now, many couples work during the day then go home and have an evening routine together. Like dinner, working out, favorite shows, and time for them to have a little “alone time.” Couples with kids usually have school work, practices, etc. to add into that mix, but when the kids go to bed, there’s available time at the end of the night for “alone time.” However, with a fire schedule, the end of his “night” is 6am and that’s when we talk about our day and do things that many other couples do at night. So many times we will have our “alone time” first thing in the morning when he gets home. Well that was until all 5 of us moved in to one room… no door to close and lock… just all of us together… all… the… time… (If you’re confused at this point, my last post can catch you up on why we were all living in one room.)

Having said this, my boys wake up early, like before the rooster early. So mornings were no longer an option for us in our one room quarters. And seeing as we’re young and still pretty interested in finding the time for said “alone time,” we knew it was going to take some creativity. We tried alternate locations… but we were renovating every space except the one room we lived in and the bathroom. So to the “bathroom” we went… And though the baby gate kept little Zander away, the other two were not so easy. We put on cartoons and so on, but inevitably at the most inconvenient moment EVERY SINGLE TIME, it’s like they had ESP! We’d hear “knock, knock, knock” Me: “What do you need boys?” Boys: “I have to poop.” Me: “Seriously? Right now?” Boys: “Yes. Really bad.” Me: “Ok… just a minute…” Boys: “What are you guys doing in there?” Me: “uh CHANGING, yea we’re changing…” So we stop… and they take care of their business. And by that time, I have to get ready to leave for work. Our only chance… destroyed by the tiny people!

[SIDE NOTE: We’ve called it “changing” ever since that day and a couple years later, we were watching a movie as a family and in the movie, a man and woman were about to kiss and Zander (then 3 yrs. old) looks at Jake and me and with a little smirk on his face and says “Oh no! They’re not going to change now are they?”  as he began to giggle. I cannot possibly put into words how hilarious it was to realize that we were fooling no one… not even our 3-year-old! We laughed so hard I was crying!]

So, we had to find another way to “change” as our only usable room with a door, the bathroom, as romantic as the bathroom was, was not working. I’ve always been they type of person that would have been mortified if anyone, my children included, caught us “changing.” BUT waiting to have more “changing time” until renovations are finished just is NOT going to happen. One night, the boys had long been asleep, we’d just been watching TV and we decided to go to bed. One goodnight kiss lead to another and, we were completely under the covers, not more than a few feet away from each boy as they’re fast asleep, we decided that we’d give this a try. I think I held my breath the entire time for fear that my breathing might rouse them. As activities beneath the sheets commenced, Jake’s breathing, to me, sounded loud enough it would wake the dead! Although realistically it was probably very quite, that just tells you how paranoid I was that the boys would wake up. Every time we moved, I felt like just the rustle of the sheets etc. was loud enough to wake them up. So… I’m guessing it was probably about every 5 seconds, I found myself whispering “Shhh… you’ll wake them up…” Which as you can imagine was a total turn on… and… the mood once again was ruined by tiny people. Though they were not even awake this time, it was my paralyzing fear that they might wake up was the culprit this time.

And, oddly enough, not long after that night the progress on the bedrooms in the back of the house increased substantially!