Roommate Phase Much?
After dinner finishes, we put on our imaginative jerseys and get to work with our common goal – bedtime.
GO TEAM!
The kitchen chair has saucy Tikka Masala handprints and there’s rice peppering the floor. My son throws the spoon of squash purée for the fifth time.
The floor is a canvas, creative and colorful. One we will wipe clean every night.
The artists are unruly and playful all in one tiny body.
Grab the little people before they carry the mess to another part of the house.
Bath time makes a referee of me:
“No splashing!”
“That’s a foul!”
“Don’t snatch toys!”
“One more move like that and you’re ejected!”
How are the dishes already spilling out of the sink?
One of us tackles that corner of the house while the other dresses the writhing alligators.
Wind down time looks more like wind up time.
Jumping. Swinging. Running.
Our house becomes Chee Chee’s Playroom, night-time version.
But the baby laughs as he watches his sister do her double twirl. We remember to not take ourselves so seriously.
Yes, to us this is the bedtime marathon. But to them, it’s their childhood- a collection of memories that evoke a feeling. We only get one shot at it so we better make it count.
It’s no secret evenings aren’t a romantic time for my husband and I to reconnect from our day.
We have two kids. We are in the roommate phase.
The roommate phase is a term that refers to you and your spouse being just that, roommates, as opposed to a couple in love.
My so-called roommate and I split up the tasks that are left after the kids go to bed: work, school assignments, cleaning, packing lunches.
If we’re lucky, we have ten minutes to talk between that.
Most of the time we relish the silence.
We are not rocking the two-kid life. The only thing we are rocking is the baby and it’s A LOT!
Many couples feel shame about being in this phase of marriage. We’ve accepted it.
What’s beautiful to us is that although kids are forever; this is only a season where they need help with everything.
How special is it that we can appreciate sitting on the couch for ten minutes talking. Our relationship has become simplified to that.
At least if we are roommates, I picked a good one. 😉
