what keeps me up at night

This pregnancy has left many people -- friends, strangers, and even ourselves -- wondering when we would move. After all, how were we ever going to squeeze another soul into our six hundred square feet of space?

We sat on the immediate answer to that question ("I have absolutely no idea") for several months after the pregnancy was confirmed before we started to make plans for an out-of-state move this summer, scheduled to happen once the school year ended and around the time the baby would outgrow the Moses basket in our room and need to bunk with his brothers. A timeline was outlined, possible locations and potential job options were considered -- it was all becoming simultaneously more real and more critical that we make this happen.

And then reality, as it so often does, came crashing down around us. No matter how much we wanted or needed to move, even to just a larger apartment in Brooklyn, as opposed to a more suburban location in another part of the country, it was just not financially possible. We'd have to postpone our plans.

It was a crushing blow, but, as much as I've hated to admit it, it was the best option. Moving in financial crisis mode would do little to improve our current situation. But, likewise, knowing this does little to answer all of the pressing logistical questions currently keeping me up at night.

Here are a few of the dilemmas, along with the best possible solutions we've been able to devise, that we've been grappling with:

Laundry. While a washer and dryer in-house is obviously the ideal option, it's not gonna happen anytime soon, and neither, due to the immense cost, is the local tradition of "sending it out." So in order to make lugging those loads, which will only get bigger with another person in the family, up and down the stairs and back and forth to the laundromat a little easier, I've considered that maybe it's time to break up my massive "laundry day" into two smaller ones. It would mean dealing with two of those difficult days in one week, but I'm hopeful that a slightly lighter load will make the ordeal a little less painful.

Sleeping Arrangements. The baby will sleep in our room until he outgrows the Moses basket that fits on the cedar chest at the end of our bed (roughly July, if he grows like the rest of them have). After that, he'll have to move into the crib. Which means that Matthew will be booted from his current bed. But there's no way to rearrange that tiny room to fit another bed, not even a toddler-sized one, and toddler-sized loftbeds, which we could maybe put over the crib, not only sound kind of dangerous, they also do not seem to exist. We then briefly considered replacing the drawers under the bunk bed with a trundle, but not only would that mean giving up some incredibly valuable storage space, but, because of the limited way in which we can arrange furniture in that room, we'd be unable to even pull the trundle out all the way. Which has left us with what we're currently considering: letting Caleb and Matthew share the bottom bunk, sleeping head to toe. I mean, the pioneers did it, so why can't we? Caleb, in a gesture of generosity, offered this idea up himself, which gives me hope that it will work. And if it doesn't, maybe we'll invest in some sort of smallish sleeping mat that we can pull down each night to the middle of the room for Matthew to sleep on.

Clothes Storage. This one should be the easiest dilemma to figure out, but even so, we can't find a dresser option that we can both afford and agree on, not to mention something that will fit the wardrobes of four people. The boys currently only have one drawer each, with one "extra" drawer that the two older ones share for their socks, underwear, and pajamas. Ideally I'd like something with 6 large drawers -- one for each boy, plus two more that they can share between them. But we haven't yet found something that we love that is also durable enough to withstand the clothes-stuffing and furniture-climbing shenanigans of four boys. So this issue is still up in the air.

Meals. We don't fit in our kitchen. But because family dinner time is one of the few times we're all able to be together, it is important that we keep this tradition. Right now we will probably bring the boys' small play table into the entryway just beyond the kitchen for Caleb and Matthew to sit at while the rest of us eat at the bigger table in the kitchen. It'll be a hassle, and we'll still be tripping over each other and dealing with limited elbow and knee space, but it's better than nothing.

My Sanity. It may be in shreds, but I'd like to preserve what little I have left. I've talked with a friend in the ward about hiring her 12-year-old daughter as a mother's helper for a few hours a week. This would allow me to do things like get the older boys out of the house and down to the park while I tend to the baby, help the older ones with homework while someone paid attention to the younger ones, and maybe run a quick errand or two (or, you know, do laundry without my entire entourage in tow). All this, of course, won't solve the fact that we're quite literally living on top of each other and that little boys need more space to run and diffuse the noise they make, but it's something.


The bottom line, though, is that everything will work out somehow because it just will, and life will move forward because it always does. And this plan to stay put is only temporary because just as I'm sure we can make it work for a while, we won't be able to make it work forever. I may not know the "hows" but I do know that this baby is joining our family because we acted on a prompting. And even though there are moments when I feel him kicking and that desperate and hollow feeling deep inside me creeps to the surface, making me seriously question that action, I really do know that this baby is supposed to join our family at this time, despite the obstacles smacking us square in the face. And that's a truth that for me is impossible to toss aside.