I have taken dozens of bubble baths over the last couple of weeks and when I open my eyes I am still sitting in my tub in my fucking bathroom. Want to know what else is in that bathroom when I open my eyes? A bunch of little people, staring me down, with questions or demands.

“What are you doing?”

“Can I take a bath?”

“Can I play on the computer?”

“Can I watch TV?”

“Will I have a big butt like you one day?”

“Your wine shakes all over when you cry.”

I can barely remember what it feels like to go to the bathroom without a captive audience.

My children can be completely occupied but they will drop everything and magically appear the moment I walk into the bathroom. They can be in a different room! With the door closed! They will appear out of thin air to demand snacks or kick my self esteem down a couple more pegs. I had figured out when Number One was a newborn that the sound of me relaxing caused children to go batshit crazy. It didn’t take me much longer to discover that children also have a psychic link to a mother’s bladder that compels them to her side anytime it is being emptied.

Number Four is adorable–light of my life and all that jazz. He has, so far, been the easiest baby of all four. It is amazing what he can sleep through, too. Number Three can raise hell, all four dogs can be barking at the suspicious presence of oxygen in the room, the television blaring, the vacuum running—none of it disturbs his slumber. Things that will wake my little angel from a deep sleep: my hand turning the bathroom doorknob, me lifting food to my mouth and the sound of me gently laying my head on a pillow. I shit you not. He will, however permit me to lay down and get some rest, so long as he is allowed to sleep at the breastaurant.. I have agreed to his terms.As much as I love Husband, I have fantasized about the part time privacy I would acquire through divorce. Ahhhh, a girl can dream.