We have an upstairs loft that we don't use often. It's basically a dumping ground for boxes we still haven't unpacked (four years after moving in!), storage for holiday things, where overnight guests stay, etc. We have an office nook off the main space where Mike's computer is and he's up there a couple times a week, tinkering around or playing Call of Duty. Once every few months or so, I'll escape to our oversized reading chair with a glass of wine and a book and listen to the boys wrestle down below.
For the most part, though, it's a great space with a lot of potential, just waiting for us to find the time and money to invest in making it what it could be and, until that free time or new bank account arrives, it stays mostly unused.
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Mike and I have always had designated sleep-in days, and that works for us. I get Saturdays, he gets Sundays and I imagine we both look forward to our respective days with insane excitement all week long. Mike and I are not morning people but our jobs and our child sure are, so six out of seven days, we're up at 7am on the dot, sometimes earlier but never later, making that one day feel like a lottery jackpot.
Kyle's been pretty easy to quietly entertain those early weekend mornings, from about age two on. We watch TV, build Legos, color, play outside, go for donuts, and whoever is sleeping in gets to, well, sleep in. But when he was little, between 6-24 months or so, he didn't quite grasp the concept of "Daddy needs to sleep because he has literally been tired since the day you were born." So, I'd take him upstairs those Sunday mornings. He could be much louder up there, playing with his ball popper or pushing cars across the floor for hours. Every Sunday, I'd make breakfast and carry him up. We'd play, I'd yawn, and the day would begin up there.
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We have a bathroom upstairs and it's also where we keep important papers and other things I need from time to time. Whenever I go up there, I reach the top step and instantly think of baby Kyle. Almost nothing brings me back to his crawling, screechy, soft baby days faster than the top step of our top floor.
He's becoming such a person these days and most of the time I talk myself down quite well from missing those baby days because, come on, life moves on, oldest truth in the oldest book and it's moving on to Kyle being such a cool kid. Also he can get his own snacks and go to the bathroom alone and, yeah, having a kid is just > to having a baby (in my opinion).
Still, sometimes I go upstairs and stand on the landing when I don't need anything at all.