We Will Laugh About This One Day, Right?!

1, 2, 3, 4...each day Eric and I are getting closer to welcoming our fourth child into this world. Four kids! Four boys at that! We live in a three bedroom/1 bath home. Six years ago, when we purchased this home (our first) I was about three months pregnant with Parker. At that time we planned on two kids (three at max). We planned on living in this house five years (7 years max). While we planned on having our kids fairly close in age, we did not plan on having four kids in our first six years of marriage. We certainly did not plan on having four kids in this house. However, sometimes you just have to throw your plan out the window.

When we became pregnant with Ryder, we were making use of the two upstairs bedrooms. Thankfully, those two bedrooms are rather spacious. Upon moving in they needed very little work done to them (compared to the other rooms in our home). We tore the wallpaper down (despise this task), put up new paint (come to think of it we have repainted the boy's bedroom twice), and replaced the very pink carpet in the boy's room. With a third child on the way we came up with the plan (uh-huh, that dreaded word again) to remodel the downstairs "bedroom" for ourselves, move the older two boys into our larger bedroom, and in due time put Ryder in the smaller of the two rooms upstairs. Simple enough, right? Yes, the downstairs bedroom was by far the smallest of all three rooms. However, we did not feel comfortable putting a child(ren) in a room downstairs while we were upstairs. Additionally, Eric and I do not have the toys so to speak that the children have. The closet in the downstairs room is large enough to where we would have no true need for a dresser and a bed in a room would be suffice. After all, we would be putting the house up for sale soon. It would just be temporary. Certainly, we were done having children once we hit three.

Fast forward to present time...Ryder is less than 6 months away from turning 2 years old. We are due with baby #4 in about two months (what...where did he come from?!). We are still living in our three bedroom/one bath house. However, we are still only using two of the three bedrooms. The older two boys remain in their room and Ryder remains in our bedroom.

Truthfully, the downstairs bedroom turned into a bigger undertaking than we thought. To make the room usable we needed to tear down a wall, rip various forms of crappy trim/wainscoting/etc from the walls, add additional wiring, put up drywall over concrete (yes, I said concrete), paint, carpet, etc. Are we further into the project than when I first became pregnant with Ryder? Yes, however we still have a ways to go. We have no one other than ourselves to blame for the delay. We have chosen to put our time, energy, and money elsewhere. Add to that three small children to contend with, a husband who works crazy/long hours, and a husband who is really not a fan of large household projects (no, Eric will not divorce me for putting this out on the web...he will freely admit it) the room is just not done.

Last week, I began pulling out baby stuff to get ready for Hudson's arrival. Crap! Where are we going to put his stuff? We are running out of room (thank goodness for a four room basement for storing said stuff). I began to panic. Then I was on the verge of tears. Soon, I was angry. I want to nest, people! Only my nest is getting smaller and smaller with the addition of each child. Now, here is where you will find yourself laughing. In our delusional minds (up until recently) Eric and I were pretty much convinced that in the next two months we would finish the downstairs bedroom, paint the two bedrooms upstairs, and make all necessary transitions between the rooms. Riiiiight! We still have the three small children, Eric still works long/crazy hours (with an outage coming up which translates into more crazy hours), and this preggo mama is sometimes useless (well, outside of the fact that I am growing a baby and all LOL).

Last week, either reality hit me or my pregnancy brain went full speed ahead. I spewed the following to Eric, "Honey, you are going to think I am nuts. I am beginning to think of smaller goals. We are not going to get all three bedrooms completed before Hudson's arrival. You know that. I know that. LET'S MOVE OUR KING SIZED BED INTO THE LIVING ROOM AND FOCUS ON THE BEDROOMS UPSTAIRS. I think we need to focus on the kids and getting them situated. The two of us sleeping in the living room will only be temporary." At this point my (just as crazy) husband agreed with me and said he suggested the same thing months ago. I am guessing I was not pregnant at that point which translated into a big fat "no" from me. Regardless, that night Eric moved our bed into the living room. He has the next three weekends off and we are going to get the two bedrooms upstairs painted, furniture moved around, etc. It is going to happen. Period.

Upon Hudson's arrival and the conclusion of the outage we are going to complete the bedroom downstairs. Period. After all, having our bed in the living room will give us that extra push. Right?! As I told my mom of our plans the other night I was reminded that what we have is more than others. For that, we are thankful. Then my mom let me know that one day we would think back about our bed being in the living room and we would laugh. Gosh, I certainly hope so!