Thursday, February 2, 2012

Co-Habitation

I have been working at my Mom's in-home daycare a few days a week and Jason has been working five minutes way from where my lives, so we have been staying at my Mom's house a few nights a week. Saturday, January 21 we all came over in the evening to spend the night, so I could take Jason to work in order to take his truck to church in the morning (did I mention the car is broken--again?). In the meantime I got in contact of the teenage who sometimes does a bit of cleaning for me to see if should could get over to the house to do my dishes before we got back Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday morning she calls me, "Uh, I can't turn the water on. I can't even move the faucet. It's really cold in here, maybe the pipes are frozen?" I called my father-in-law to see if he could stop by on his way to work to check to see if the furnace was on. That afternoon he called, "Well, I got the furnace running again." I answered, "Thanks, I'll send Jason over when he gets out of work."

Jason got home and I delivered the bad news. My Dad and Jason went over to the house to see what was going on. The furnace was off again, due to a broken pipe flooding it with water. Over the next few trips over they would fix some pipes, thaw some toilets, fiddle with the furnace, find more broken parts of the furnace, and become increasingly frustrated. We are now to the point where we are ordering a part to fix the furnace and repairing just a few more pipes.

In the meantime we have been living at my parents (hence the baking). Every morning (when there is daycare) I fold up our bedding, put up our mattress, and erase our presence from the daycare "napping room". Stomper and I spend a few moments to ourselves in the living room (apart from the daycare) knitting, reading, and playing. Then we join daycare for breakfast and some playtime. I help my Mom with lunch and childcare while Stomper takes his morning nap. During daycare nap Stomper eats lunch and plays, then naps when the daycare kiddos wake from their naps. Late afternoon I might do some baking with my sister or supper prep. If there are a lot of kids around in the afternoon we head back to the living room for a bit while we wait for Papa and Grandfather to get home. Evenings go quickly for Stomper and before I know it Jason is dragging our mattress out and making our bed.

I wasn't sure if six adults and one toddler could share space, but apparently we can. The only thing I miss about my home, is my room. I don't even mind sharing my bedroom with a toddler. And really, what I miss is my evening snuggle time in front of the TV with my hubby. I also lament not having a second vehicle. Stomper hasn't seen much of his other set of grandparents in over a week, but he is spending the week-end over there so he should get quite a bit of time with them.

Other than that I could live like this for quite awhile. It's nice sharing responsibilities. It's nice not planning every meal on my own, making the meal, and then cleaning up from the meal (not that Jason doesn't help, because he does). It's nice having more than one pair of eyes on Stomper, especially now that he's mobile and climbing on everything. It's also nice getting to know my sister a little more.

2 comments:

  1. I'm so excited that he is spending the weekend with Mimi and Bumpa!

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  2. It is so true that sharing daily tasks in this way helps ease some burdens. I think we've lost this kind of living arrangement - where families stayed close or even in the same house. It's a shame, as there's so much benefit from that! It's neat that you're getting to experience a bit of it (even though it's a bummer about your pipes/furnace; hope that gets worked out soon!)
    -Jaime

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