The Bathroom Situation

When my children’s alarm beeps incessantly at 6:30 am because it is “too far out of reach”, I am startled out of my bed trying to figure out where I am. I sit up and look around trying to discern what I am looking at for a full 30 seconds before I realize I don’t have my glasses on; which explains the blurs in front of me. The background noise of a sleep playlist is lost in the sound of an alarm so annoying, I have no other choice, but to jump out of bed and find that tiny little button to stop the piercing sound from going deeper into my brain.

As payback, I turn on the bright lights and announce, “Good morning sunshine!”, although there is no sunshine to be had. This is usually ignored for a good half hour until the light seeps through the eyelid and finally awakens Gia. She is my oldest. It was her idea to wake up this early, so she could get herself ready for school without interruptions in the bathroom.

We live in a two bedroom, one bath apartment and space is always an issue. But, I think we can all agree that the most pressing issue for all of us is: THE BATHROOM SITUATION.

We have been blessed with a pretty sizeable bathroom, I will say that. But the fact is, there are five of us and we are all pretty regular 💩. We have come up with plans and schedules to accommodate everyone in the morning but it is a daily struggle. It seems that when we wake up, the last thing we want to think about is how to make other people more comfortable. Probably because we are not that excited about being awake ourselves. We all argue about it.

During this struggle, I have learned some things about myself which help me in other aspects of life. First, I don’t require many moments of privacy to be okay. I am open to oversharing and happily do it often. I have come to treasure storage, and the idea of storage, in an almost compulsive way. I believe in the ideology of less is more. Although I think this may be because of my current available space. If I had more space, I would have to re-think the whole thing.

One thing we still grapple with is being aware of other’s needs as well as our own. When I want to have a quiet bath, and my child needs to use the facilities, it is hard to put aside my own serenity to someone else’s moment of their own type of peace. But I am proud of us because we continue to grow as a family and take into consideration each other’s needs more personally.

I know that we will soon move to a place with an extra bathroom (maybe two!) but, I hope we will take with us our thoughtfulness for each other’s needs. Our patience with each other while we wait. And our sense of humor about the very awkward moments we have shared. Those things are irreplaceable to me. Because my biggest concern in life is not to acquire another bathroom with more storage or bigger square footage to fill to my heart’s delight but to fill my children with memories of our family laughing at ourselves, and figuring things out as we take on the world. One bathroom visit at a time.