Sharing A Room

There used to be a time we didn't have to share our room with any children. I don't remember it myself but I've been told it existed. It's a lot like the way I view Intelligent Design. Lots of people go around telling you it's the way it was but I just think it's a bunch of crap. Seriously, if I was "intelligently designed" then why is my junk in the same area as the zipper on my pants? That just seems unnecessarily dangerous. That's a discussion for another time though.

Getting back on point, last night was the first time since forever that we went to bed without a youngster somewhere in our room. The oldest has been in her new room all week. There's still a couple minor cosmetic things to be done in there but for our purposes it's done. We moved her stuff in over the weekend and she loves it. We can't threaten to send her to her room anymore because she loves it so much but that's no big deal. I can always come up with more threats. "Ok, if you don't want to pick up your toys that's your choice. I feel obligated to tell you though that messes attract monsters. I'm getting out of here before they show up so just scream if you need anything." Do they send you a letter telling you you're father of the year or do they show up at your door like Publisher's Clearinghouse?

Anyways, I decided to move the other little bed into the room yesterday so they could try and sleep in the same room together. I purposely chose the night my wife was out to avoid any discussion. The last thing I need when I'm about to do something potentially stupid is someone pointing out why it's stupid. Also, it if worked and she came home to find our bedroom kid-free then I just look like a badass parent. So I got the bed in and everything set up. They were pretty excited about the idea of sharing a room. I took that as a bad sign and figured they'd just keep each other up all night. That's what happened for a little while. The little one went from her bed to her sister's bed and then back several times. They lie down ever so cutely and then pop up and want to play. After about twenty minutes of that I decided to try a different attack.

I love that as kids get older you can actually start to reason with them. That made it so nice when I decided to tell the older one that if she was quiet and let me get her sister to sleep I'd bring her back to the little bed. I ended up having to agree to lie down with the big one too. So I took the little one to my room for the usual bedtime routine. That consists of laying down with her as she drinks her bottle. Once she decides she's had enough she'll hand over her bottle, give a good night kiss, then roll over and fall asleep. "Do you have to rub it in my face that you make the decisions around here?" She got to sleep and I got her into the other room. Twenty minutes of laying down with the big one and I was able to get out.

FREEDOM!!! Having our nice big bed to ourselves. Not having to worry about waking up a youngster. It's the stuff dreams are made of. It only lasted half the night but that's longer than we thought it would. Hopefully, we can build on that foundation and actually get some entire restful kidless nights. Before the next one shows up that is. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.