Moving Out

Life is busy!  Very good busy, but busy busy busy.  The months just seem to fly by and suddenly, here we are with an almost 7 1/2 year old (who asks me about his upcoming half birthday constantly) and a not-so-newly-minted 9 year old.  They are each in great places, and I am so happy to be mom to bigger (but still with a little bit of little in there) boys.  These bigger boys are independent and smart, full of life and energy, and even occasionally kind of helpful.  They bound off the bus every afternoon, devour a box of cereal each, and say "hi", "good" (when asked about their days), and "see ya Mom", and head out into the woods to play.  They find a boy or three or twenty nearby and they are off adventuring or throwing a ball or building a fort or beating each other up...and they really don't need another thing from me until dinner.  Really.  After that fifteen minute burst of noise and activity, the house is silent.  I enjoy this time, puttering around my house and catching up on things, all the while listening to the happy squeals outside, knowing that this childhood we are giving our kids is pretty darn great.

This extra space in my life feels new.  Of course, there are still the afternoons where we have activities, and my boys very much need me to shuttle them around from place to place.  But when we're home, they are quite able to fend for themselves.  I appreciate this extra bit of space that has naturally appeared, particularly as I reengage with the working world and begin to ramp up my new career.  The balance that seemed so difficult to obtain when the boys were younger seems a bit more in reach.  My to-do list is still a mile long, but who's isn't?  The important stuff is getting done.

One thing that had been on my to-do list since Ethan turned nine in January was to redecorate his room.  When we first moved into this house back in 2008, Ethan was in one bedroom, and Adam was in my tummy.  When Adam joined us, he took the room down the hall, and we loved both the boys' bedrooms.  In fact, Ben and I often remarked that they were our favorite rooms in the house.  Ethan's was a dinosaur theme, and Adam's was jungle-adorned.  The paint colors the previous owner had chosen were just perfect for two little boys.

Pregnant with Adam in his jungle nursery.

Fast forward to 2012, when the boys, then 3 and 5, decided they'd like to try sharing a room.  So we moved Ethan into Adam's room, redecorated it with a space theme, set the boys up in bunk beds, and changed the other bedroom into a playroom.  This arrangement worked well - we were able to start relocating the toy mess from our living room, and the boys fell in love with being together at night.  I have, and will forever have, such fond memories of listening to their adorable little conversations as they fell asleep.

First night in bunk beds!

Now fast forward again, this time to 2015.  Ethan, then 8, starts voicing an interest in having his own space.  He wants to be able to keep his living area clean, and the messes his brother creates really bother him.  He wants privacy sometimes.  He wants to be alone sometimes.  As a mom to two boys who had been perennially attached at the hip, this news was hard to hear.  I'm not sure what I had imagined, exactly - surely it wasn't two high school boys sleeping in bunk beds.  But I guess I had just pictured them together for longer.  Slowly, I warmed up to Ethan's idea.  I heard him, and I understood.  I realized it was all going to be ok; in fact, giving Ethan the space he was asking for would actually help maintain the boys' close relationship, rather than harm it.  So he and I began planning and dreaming and decorating his "big boy room" that he'd get when he turned nine.

Of course, life gets busy, and time gets away from you and redoing a bedroom seems like too big of a task for a weekend, and suddenly it was March and Ethan's room was still baby green with dinosaurs.  And he was grumpy and nagging.  Noni and Papi had come through with their birthday gift of a new desk, but mom hadn't fulfilled her end of the bargain.  We settled on a paint color and I purchased the paint, thinking that would appease Ethan, at least for a bit.  And then, as fate would have it, after a weirdly mild winter, Mother Nature decided to throw us two snow days in one week!  And there's nothing that motivates this mama more than cabin fever.  So while the boys played out in the snow, I finally tackled Ethan's room.  In less than a week, the green walls were coated with navy, the dinosaurs replaced with football posters and NFL logos.  And voila!  We have a big boy's room.

Ethan is over-the-moon thrilled with his new room.  It suits him perfectly, and he seems to enjoy having a safe haven when he needs space, quiet, and a clean floor.  My favorite part about this story is that all my sad thoughts about splitting the boys up were premature...they haven't spent one night alone yet!

Either Adam drags his sleeping bag into Ethan's new room, or Ethan spends the night in his old top bunk.  Just like old times, they are still in love with being together at night.  And I still love listening to their adorable little conversations as they fall asleep.

Together forever, right?  Maybe even in high school???