A Room With a Door

We have finally given SG something every twelve year old girl desires.  Something that when cracked beckons us in and something when shut tight says "stay out".  Yes, we have given her a door to her room.   It doesn't matter anymore that she has lived the past two years with only three full walls and an operable door only half the time.  That is forgotten now with this white rectangle of power.  If she tires of her brother, she can escape to her room AND close the door!  Before she would try to escape him and he would just stick his head through either the hole meant for a door or through the studs that were never drywalled to get her attention.  This door represents her way of saying "I HATE YOU LEAVE ME ALONE!" when slammed with the wrath of teenage angst.  All this we have given her with just one door.  We are excellent parents; this door cements our superiority in the parent ranking.

Power.  Absolute power.

Why just now is she getting a door?  Well, in another excellent parenting move, we have moved the 16 year old to a bedroom on the first floor.  What was once a cozy respite for guests is now a first floor escape hatch for any teen looking to sneak out.  Or in.  The teen being on the first floor liberated SG from the three-walled-no-doored-toyroom/now-it's-a-bedroom bedroom.  We have painted it an eye-popping alien green at her choosing but it is that simple white door that gets attention.  Click, open.  Click, close.  Open, shut, open, shut.  She loves this door more than the room itself.  It is like the toddler who plays with packaging surrounding the toy rather than the toy.  

In our defense, although I know it is not needed, SG has been a terrible sleeper from day one.  It may or may not be my fault for waking her once to feed her when she was two weeks old.  Once.  I had to.  I really had to.  Or it could be that Bill traveled a lot when she was tiny and I was tired and I never Ferberized her or made her cry it out in her crib.  Mama was too tired and postpartum for that.  Once she could get out of her bed on her own, she did and made a beeline for ours and when she grew too big to share the bed, I would find her on the floor next to our bed.  So really, I figured she would be sleeping on our floor until she went to college and didn't see a lot of point in making sure she had a comfy bedroom.  I once spent $40 on a set of horse sheets because her three year old self promised me she would sleep every night in her own bed if she had horse sheets.  Liar, liar pants on fire SG.

Bill loves to start a project and when SG declared herself too old to share a room with the boy, he jumped up with hammer and wall studs in hand.  He quickly threw up a wall across the open toy room and we declared it her new bedroom.  He and I carried dry wall upstairs to wall if off and really, that is where the trouble came in.  I like to think I am strong until I try to move things with my husband.  Have you ever moved drywall?  It is really, really heavy!  And cumbersome!  And you cannot bend it or it breaks.  Plus, Bill likes to say things like "If I chromed it could you lift it?" or "I bet you could get it over your head if it had a kettlebell handle".  Ha ha Bill McMahon.  He gets frustrated with me and ends up carrying things on his head like a woman carrying water from a well.  This does not bode well for the herniated disks in his back.  So, those two pieces of drywall went up and that is how it stayed until he ripped the wall down last weekend.  Actually, he chain sawed through the wall while SG was on her bed listening to music.  Yes, her bed was against the same wall, but she is fine.  We had a good laugh together as excellent parents do with their offspring.  We were showing that humor and power tools really do mix.

Oh, don't poor SG me.  She was fine.  We didn't make her share a room with her sister.  That would have been horrific for all.  The teen would have ripped SG's heart out the first night in and held it aloft while yelling "MY ROOM! IT'S MY ROOM!". Or perhaps just wounded her tender heart with mean words and eye rolls.  You know how it is with sisters; you never really like them until you don't live with them anymore.  So, see?  We were protecting her.  Harboring her.  Shielding her tender heart and gentle spirit. 

 When she had friends sleep over in the pretend room, I could hear the laughter and conversation as it floated out and down the stairs.  Now I am going to have to actually walk up the stairs and press my ear against the door if I want to hear anything.  This is called active parenting and again, this door really does prove our great level of parenting. This door is like a fairy tale come true for all the McMahons.  Bill and I have tangible proof of our excellent parenting and SG has regained power...so now they will all live (mostly) happily ever after.