Making Space for a Growing Family

Once the mayhem of work died down, it was immediately replaced with an endless stream of household chores based around the displacement of the office for Kate’s Big Girl Room.

It’s been nothing short of maddening not being able to roll up my sleeves and do my fare share of the work. But the half that doesn’t involve lugging heavy boxes, furniture and electronics involved dismantling and re-establishing computer equipment, wireless internet service, etc. So either advanced pregnancy or lack of tech know-how has stymied my usefulness. And turbo-charged with the nesting instinct as I am, this leaves me to just pester Mark, sit and watch, and pipe up with occasional undoubtedly aggravating suggestions.

The whole endeavor has been extremely stressful on Mark, since A) I’m nagging, B) he’d doing all the work and C) he’s wedging it into whatever free time he has on weekends. Also because this process entails adding more stuff to a small house and trying to figure out where the hell to squirrel away the stuff we already have.

Can we jimmy another human into this space–replete with its own wardrobe and cavalcade of gear–and still be able to find our 2006 tax returns? At this juncture, that remains to be seen–though we seem to be close to emerging on the side of success. Everything is still not in its final resting place. For example, all our important (and some not-so important) documents still reside in a towering 5-drawer file cabinet in Kate’s new Big Girl Room. Good to have them at hand for her in the event that she wants to review our life insurance policy, or check out some detail of Mark’s birth certificate on some sleepless night.

And just when you think it’s the adults who are in charge of the house-space wrangling, Little Miss Toddler has to get into the mix. When I recently came home from a long car ride and was making my way to the bathroom, Kate stood in my way. “No use this bathroom, Mama,” she said sternly. “Why not, honey?” I asked, trying to be patient and not sweep her aside as my pea-sized prego bladder prepared to burst.

“My alligator in this bathroom,” she explained. “My alligator need privacy.”