Since
I live in a large city, traffic jams are a part of life. Getting anywhere means
planning for extra travel time. Living in a large family can create similar
situations in the home, especially if your home isn’t big.
In
our house you have to look both ways before you enter the hallway to avoid the
inevitability of being ran into by my daughter. I won’t say she is pacing
because sometimes she skips and others she runs. You can see why it is
important to check first.
There
is also the eventuality of more than one person needing the bathroom at the
same time. In our household it isn’t uncommon to hear someone yell (we have
some hard of hearing family members), “There’s a line.”
This
of course is to encourage whoever is in the bathroom to hurry up.
The
one time I never really have much trouble getting use of the bathroom is at O’
dark thirty in the morning when I have to wake up my youngest so he can get
ready for school. Most days we are the only two awake at that hour and I can
generally get done in the bathroom before my son drags himself out of bed and
finds himself some clean clothes to put on. In fact, he can take long enough
doing just that, even on the days my youngest daughter is also up at that hour
we both generally have time to use the facilities before he gets to the door.
This
morning was one of the morning when my daughter would also be awake, and I knew
this before I went to wake up my son. I did not however, stop at the bathroom
first, which in hindsight I probably should have.
I
went to wake my son up but he did not stir or respond to me any fashion before
I headed back to my room. I was sure I’d be relying on the snooze feature to
insure I went back to try waking him up again.
By
the time I’d accomplished that much the bathroom was now occupied by said
youngest daughter. I crawled back in bed to wait my turn.
A
moment later said son come in looking for the clean laundry that never got put
away yesterday, and he is not pleased he has to wait for his sister to get out
of the bathroom before he can take his bath.
While
he is waiting and looking for his clothes my other daughter wakes up. “Who’s in
the bathroom?”
From
my bed I moaned. “Your sister.” Then I yelled. “There’s a line.” Then I added. “There
a veritable traffic jam.” Two people (my daughter and I) waiting to use the
facilities and my son needing to get in the tub. While it’s not unheard of to
get three people in line in this family, I can honestly say that’s the first
time it happened so early in the morning.
Our
next obstacle was getting said son in and out of the tub in under his usual
half an hour because he no longer had that much time. Not if his brother and my
youngest daughter were going to get ready for school on time. I had to tell
him he didn’t have to wait for the tub to finish filling up before he started
bathing.
Somehow
we got through this morning. And by some miracle I didn’t run into any real
traffic jams trying to get my kids where they needed to be.
Smile.
Make the day a brighter day.
