A Mother’s Prayer for Privacy
Dear Lord,
Thank you for my beautiful, healthy, creative and otherwise spectacular children. I am grateful for the many blessings and profound love that they have brought to my life.
I just have a few teeny little requests:
I pray that I might be able to take a shower without one of my children coming into the bathroom, crying, to tell me that their sister hit them / pushed them / grabbed a toy or book away from them. Or telling me that they need help getting their shirt off. Or that they want a snack. Or that they’re going to poop.
Furthermore, I pray that they might not pull back the shower curtain, peek inside and say, “I can see your butt!” or make other comments about my body — specifically the ways it differs from their own on account of my being an adult, thus requiring me to have mini-conversations with them about the way their bodies will change when they’re older while at the same time trying to rinse the shampoo out of my hair.
On a related note, I pray that maybe at least some of the time I could go to the bathroom without one of my children (whom I adore and am grateful for, really, don’t get me wrong) starting to open the door and come in, requiring me to yell, “Hey! Privacy, please!” Or simply standing outside the door yelling for me to help them find their scissors or tape / get them a snack / settle a dispute / etc.
Dear Lord, may they someday be able to settle their own disputes.
But I digress.
May I someday be able to get dressed without my daughters commenting on my boobs. And trying on my bras.
Actually, that’s not so bad. It’s kind of funny. Scratch that.
Might I be able to work at home, in my home office, while the girls are being looked after by their dad or a sitter, and not have them come up the stairs and open the door and come in and try to crawl on my lap. Especially when I already have my laptop on my lap. Because it’s a fairly new MacBook Air, and I really like it. (Sorry, that was materialistic, wasn’t it? Thank you for providing fertile ground and good fortune in which to plant metaphorical trees that I might reap the fruits of my labor to buy a totally sweet computer. Hey, I think I just managed to disprove that old chestnut “money doesn’t grow on trees.” Because it does, on metaphorical ones, right? Ha! But I digress again.)
Finally — here’s a twist; you’re never going to see this one coming — I pray that they will continue to want to crawl up onto my lap after they’ve eaten their breakfast / lunch / dinner while I’m still eating, because although it’s annoying, and at times makes me feel slightly claustrophobic, I know that their need for physical closeness to me won’t last much longer. And I want to cherish it while it’s still here.
Which is a roundabout way of saying thank you, O Lord, for my sweet, affectionate children, whom I treasure above all treasures. (Like, way way above the aforementioned MacBook Air.)
Amen
PS – Even just the bathroom thing would be great.
PPS – Where is Jesus buried? Just curious.
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This post is so very awesome I find myself lacking the words to describe the awesomeness awesome of this post. I pray this same thing every day :) Oh, how I wish I could be in the bathroom by myself to shower or use the toilet. We have the exact conversations you are speaking of every day. Locking the door doesn’t work because then they just scream outside of it. And cry. And fake getting hurt. Then they really get hurt. Vicious cycle. And the bras…I am a DD and seeing my bras on two little 3.5 year olds is just to fricking funny. And you are totally right about the lap thing – on both accounts.
“Mommy!!! What are you doing in there?”
You really don’t want to know, and I really prefer to do it alone.
so great! me and my husband yell “privacy, please!” a lot. it only sort of works.
And please don’t decide that the time to ask me 50 questions or get in to a fight with your sibling is when I’m on the phone with someone!
Loved these.
I cannot tell you the number of times I have yelled “mummy needs privacy” whilst on the loo, only to be brought toilet paper. Because in our house, privacy means toilet paper.
My other prayer, uttered on the way up the stairs to the boys’ room in the morning, is for two dry beds. Because if there are two dry beds, I might be able to do my own laundry that day.
I pray that my children don’t look at the bags of shredding too closely when we are taking them to the recycling! While we do admire the 10-15 pieces of artwork that each one of my twins produces weekly, we cannot afford a bigger house just to keep it all!
Oh, yes, oh yes. These are excellent additions. Mom of Twins in Ohio: The shredder! Brilliant! And here we’ve just been burying our children’s creations in the bottom of the recycling bin. Shredding them seems much safer.
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Cindy, your comment is awesomely awesome. And much appreciated. :-)
I pray that the mornings will be drama free so we can get out the door somewhat on time… I also pray that night time will be easy and that they will go to sleep quickly. This momma needs a break..
I’m just astonished how I turned from a person who couldn’t begin to fathom having anyone in the bathroom with me to someone who doesn’t even bother to shut the door because what’s the point? I think it was Erma Bombeck who had a quote about if she needed to hold a family meeting she’d simply walk alone into the bathroom and in moments everyone would be there.
That’s why I get up at 5am every day. I need to be able to take a shower, get dressed, put on makeup and eat breakfast in relative peace before I’m able to tackle the rest of my day with my 3 girls. It’s also nice to use the bathroom with the door closed. I know I won’t be able to do that from 6am-7pm.
I know it’s ridiculously early but I treasure that hour in the morning before the chaos begins.
why dont u just lock the door?
This is very relevant for me right now since this morning I had to explain to my 3 year old what a certain “feminine hygiene” product was for….It is annoying to have NO privacy but I wouldn’t trade it for the world right now because some day it won’t be like that at all and I will want them back.
@JULI – if you lock the door they bang on it– do you even have kids?
Be warned the gap between one’s children following u to the loo and your grandchildren doing the same thing is shorter than u think!!!