Tuesday, April 17, 2012

7 kids 1 bathroom

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*Gasp!* I can hear it now as many of you are reading this! Part of it is because you know what I'm talking about, the other part of you, couldn't even imagine.

The last home we lived in was small, three bedrooms (okay, one wasn't even a bedroom), living room, kitchen and ONE very tiny bathroom. So how did we manage.....there's actually a lot to say about this then one would think.

What do you do when it's 6am, everyone is trying to rush to the bathroom at once because everyone needs to go!!!! And not later, but NOW!!!!!

Smaller kids go first.....they're most likely being potty trained and haven't learned how to hold it yet. Anyone who is under the age of 5 gets to go first! Next......whoever gets in there first, gets to go. But only to go to the bathroom, grooming must wait.

While waiting, the waiting children could be eating their breakfast, getting dressed, making their beds, or patiently watching TV and waiting until everyone else is done.

Once everyone has had their chance to do their business......The person who has to be out of the house the earliest gets to go back in first.....brush teeth, comb hair and get out! If this particular person needs to "do" their hair or their makeup or something else.....put a mirror up on the back of the bedroom door. There's no reason for them to be hogging the bathroom so they can primp themselves up. Bathrooms are used for well, the obvious reason of course, brushing teeth and showering.....ONLY! Everything else can be done in their bedrooms or in the car or on the bus if need be. I can remember waking up late for school and having to do my makeup on the bus, it didn't kill me anymore than it'll kill your 16 year old daughter!

We've been lucky in the fact that everyone wakes up at different types, so it hasn't or hadn't been too bad.

Showers are only done at night and we alternate boys and girls. For example, M-W-F are girl's nights and T-Th-S is boy's night. We skip Sunday unless the kids have had a hard day at playing, then we just wing it! I shower during the day, always have. If I want a relaxing bubble bath, I wait until night time when the kids are in bed. But to be honest, bubble baths bore me......

How about the dreaded brushing of the teeth. This can be difficult, especially if you have kids that need to be in there at the same time. Well, one can brush in the sink, the other can brush in the bathtub and the other can go to the kitchen. Worse comes to worse, tell one of them to go use the gardening hose if they absolutely can not wait.

We have had times when one person or another just can't wait, so they've been told, 3rd tree to the left. There has only been one child on one particular day that used that advice as he really could not wait. Thank God our home was shaded by lots of trees where no one could see what he actually was doing.

Back to showers.....each child gets 10 minutes before it's time for the next one to get in. Right now the only one girl who needs to hold to that rule is Gitty as she's old enough to shower herself. But we bathe the younger girls ourselves as they are only 4 (almost), 17 months and 7 months. The boys', other than JP, is a little tougher as they'd stay in there all night if we'd let them!

I hope this helps some of you figure out your bathroom situation, if you are like how we used to be.

We now have two bathrooms and I wouldn't go back to having one unless I absolutely HAD to!

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