The Couch Has a Tenant

Just over a year ago, we sold our house. It was awful.

Then we bought another one. Also awful.

Honestly, the entire process was a genuine nightmare from beginning to end, but eventually we survived it and ended up in a house with one very important thing: enough bedrooms.

We wanted every kid to finally have their own. Their own room. Their own bed. Their own space.

We did it. Everyone got a bedroom.

Except apparently my six-year-old misunderstood the assignment.

Because she sleeps on the couch.

Every. Single. Night.

Not occasionally. Not because she fell asleep watching a movie and nobody wants to touch her because moving a sleeping six-year-old is basically bomb disposal. She just lives there now.

Every night she gets settled on the couch, turns on Sleepy Times on the big TV and pulls her blankets and pillow out of the coffee table.

Yes. The coffee table.

Her sleeping stuff has assigned storage. That’s how long we’ve been doing this. At some point we stopped asking why this child refuses to sleep in the bedroom we specifically went through hell to make sure she had and started figuring out where to store her couch bedding during business hours.

Apparently we have accepted this.

Meanwhile, upstairs, her actual bedroom sits empty.

But sure. The couch.

So now my six-year-old is essentially running a studio apartment out of my living room. Her bed is the couch. Her TV is considerably larger than the one in her actual bedroom. Her linen closet is the coffee table.

Honestly, she’s doing pretty well for herself.

And we’re apparently the landlords who have completely lost control of the property.

I should want this to stop. And I do.

I think.

Because I would like my couch to just be a couch again.

But here’s the annoying part.

Eventually, she’s going to stop.

Not because I finally convince her that bedrooms are traditionally where humans keep their beds. She’s just going to get older. One night she’ll sleep upstairs. Then she’ll do it again.

And at some point I’ll open the coffee table and realize her blankets haven’t been in there for a while.

There probably won’t be an announcement. No final night on the couch. No warning that this is the last time I’m going to walk through my living room and find a six-year-old passed out in the middle of it.

She’ll just stop coming downstairs.

And I’ll get exactly what I’ve been asking for.

My living room back.

Except then I’ll probably stand there looking at my normal couch and my normal coffee table and wonder which night was the last one.

I’ll wish I’d known.

Which is incredibly annoying, considering one of the things we went through that whole moving nightmare for was to make sure she had a bedroom of her own.

Then she finally used it.

And apparently I didn’t want that either.

Clearly, I’m indecisive.