Today as I went to use the bathroom, and as there was nobody else in the house to watch the baby, I had to take him in there with me, it suddenly dawned on me how much of our privacy and time we give up when we become parents.
Even when I have a bath there is usually a little hand knocking on the door telling me that she wants a bath or there is a knock on the door from a bigger hand (that being my almost teenager) saying he needs to use the toilet even though not ten minutes earlier I asked 'does anyone need the bathroom before I get in my bath' perhaps what I should ask is 'does anyone need the toilet in roughly about ten minutes time when I will be just about be beginning to relax in bubbles!'
And then there are the times when I need to sit down to do some work on our website. It is at this point our daughter will do one of two things, one she suddenly sees what I am doing and even though she has been very happily playing with something else, it is at this point, in her own little way that she tells me it is of vital importance that she watches Mickey Mouse on YouTube right now! Or two, she will come over, press the 'off' button before I have had a chance to save my work, and I can't tell her off because she looks at me with a big grin on her face saying 'Look mummy I did it!'
Come on parents think about it - how many times have you eaten your dinner with one hand while holding, cuddling, or feeding your little one with the other? Or your baby goes down for their nap, so you take the opportunity to rush around the house to do some housework, doing the vacuuming and making noise, but its usually when you decide to take a break and sit down with a cup of tea that they decide to wake up!
'But surely that's just when your children are little' I hear those of you without children say? Not so! Our invasions of privacy just come in other ways, we find now, that as our eldest approaches his teenage years every conversation my husband and I have is usually interrupted by 'well I think', 'what does that mean' or 'no you should do this instead' at which point my husband and I give each other a knowing glance that means we will talk about this later after he has gone to bed, only to find that we are asleep in bed ten minutes after him.
But do we mind these constant invasions of our privacy? Well maybe, sometimes, but on the whole no, because think about it, we always feel needed, we are never lonely, the house is too quiet without them and lets face it fellow parents its usually these invasions of our privacy that give us our happiest memories and funniest stories to tell our friends.
