Tiny Fingers Wiggling

Privacy. Alone time. Time to just be who we are, in the moment. Of course, not everyone needs it. Some people do not know how to be alone, nor do they want to be. For others, it can be a necessary part of life, and often very elusive.


When you move in with someone, you have to expect that you will lose a certain amount of privacy, and I confess I had a hard time with that when I got married. My husband didn’t feel the same need for alone time so he had some difficulty understanding why I needed it. And of course, when you have kids, it all pretty much goes out the window anyway. It’s not like when I was a child and my bedroom was my sanctuary where I could listen to music, or read a book, and no one bothered me. When you are a wife and mother, someone always finds you!

Eventually I came to the realization that the only place I could truly be alone was the bathroom! Bubble baths became my haven. I would sink into a warm bath, open up whatever book I was reading…it was bliss! However, even this didn’t always work. When they were young, my children took any closed door as a sign that there was something fun happening on the other side, if only they could get to it. As soon as they saw the closed bathroom door, they began knocking and calling my name and wondering why they couldn’t come in? I would suddenly see little tiny hands underneath the door, wiggling their fingers at me. “Can you see my hand Mommy?” If I explained that Mommy was in the tub and couldn’t open the door, they would just sit patiently on the other side of it and talk to me until I finally gave in and got out of the tub. If I suggested that their father would love to be spending time with them right then, it fell on deaf ears. Eventually, I just stopped closing the door.

As my kids grew, I regained my bathroom/bubble bath sanctuary….until I got a dog. If I close the bathroom door (or the bedroom door, or really any door) and Rascal is on the other side of it, he immediately wants in! I don’t think his reasoning is the same as my kid’s was. I don’t imagine he feels he might be missing out on something fun. I think he just fears that if I disappear on the other side of the door, I might not come back. What can I say, he has abandonment issues. If I go into the bedroom or bathroom and close the door, he will paw at it until it is opened. If I ignore him long enough, he will bark at the door. When I finally open it he will look at me as if to say, “Was that really so hard?” He doesn’t need any attention; he just wants to be close by and will lie on the floor until I’m ready to move somewhere else in the house. If I’m having a bubble bath he will lie on my bed so he can still see me, but far enough away in case I suddenly lose my mind and try to give him a bath too!

All in all, the system works pretty well and I can still be almost alone with a good book. The other night my daughter had taken Rascal out for a late walk so I was really and truly alone in my bubble bath reading my book. I even had a glass of wine sitting on the side of the tub! It was amazing. I was just taking my first sip of wine when the bedroom door flew open and seconds later my daughter and Rascal were both standing in the bathroom doorway.

I thought maybe if I ignored them, they would go away. It was a fleeting thought.

“Rascal has a tick by his nose!” Kate informed me. I looked up from my book.

“Come here Rascal. Come show Mommy!” she walked over to the tub, dog in tow. Rascal dutifully put his paws on the edge of the tub so I could get an up close and personal look at what was indeed a tick beside his nose.

“Alright, I’ll get out in a minute and deal with the tick” I said.

“Cool”.

The two of them walked back into my bedroom and sat on the bed, waiting. Sigh. The fingers might be bigger, but they’re still wiggling under the door!

The Royal We

If television is to be believed…and, I mean, come on..everything on television is true… then the concept of the “Royal We” was first used by Queen Victoria of England. Apparently she liked to say things such as “WE are not amused!” when referring to how she felt. This concept was later adopted by hospital nurses everywhere. Example: “And how are WE feeling today?” You see what I mean?

I’ve noticed recently that its usage seems to be on the rise. However, it seems to take two distinct forms. Case in point: A co-worker plopped herself down in the chair on the other side of my desk and said, “WE have a problem!”

“Okay, what is “our” problem?” I asked.

“All of these invoices got posted in the wrong period and messed everything up! Bob is freaking out! WE need to figure out how to fix it.”

“Hmmm…let me see if I understand this. YOU posted the invoices in the wrong period, and YOU need to find a way to fix them?” I questioned.

She replied, apparently oblivious to my emphatic pronoun: “Yes, exactly. How are WE going to fix this mess?”

This is what I refer to as the “If I’m going down, I’m taking you with me” use of the Royal WE. This is most commonly employed by mid level employees and small children with younger siblings.

The other common usage I’ve noticed is the attempt made by someone to hijack credit that does not belong to them. For example, you are having friends over for dinner and decide to try a new, complicated dish. One of your guests compliments you and before you can say thank you, your husband pipes up and says “Oh, it’s nothing. WE thought it would be nice to try something different, so WE looked at a few recipes and WE decided to go with this one.”

Really? Were you even in the house when any of this happened? Because I’m pretty sure you were out golfing while I was slaving away in the kitchen coming up with this! That is when you want to smile sweetly and say something like, “Yes honey. Tell everyone how WE came up with this recipe!”, then watch him squirm. But that would be childish, and I would never resort to that!  : )