How Living in a Hotel is like College

We have officially moved out of the house and are living in a hotel. Which sounds very fancy. Champagne, caviar, room service, pool. Until you realize we are at the Econo Lodge. No pool.  No room service, unless you are Hannah and Mikie and Mike and I are the staff (unpaid staff I should add). There might be caviar in the pond out front, but I wouldn't want to eat it. We do have champagne, but only because I moved the bottle of Andre from the house to the hotel (really classy, I know).

All kidding aside, it could be worse. As a coworker joked, we could be "living in a van down by the river".  But, moving from a 4 bedroom, 2 1/2 bathroom, 2800 sq. ft. house into the equivalent of a studio apartment with a cleaning lady is quite an adjustment. It's like being back to college, but with two kids...

Problem #1:  Sleeping. We have two queen beds; one for us and one for the kids. Or, as Hannah tried to convince us, "One for the girls and one for the boys."  Ha!  Fat chance, kid. I've seen "Family Guy". I don't need to give her easy access to smother me while I sleep.

Remember being in college and finding out you are an early riser, but your roommate is a night owl?  That's us.  The kids go to bed at 8:30. First, because they need their sleep (it's hard enough to wake them up at 6 am). Second, because Mike and I need time without listening to them whine and fight. So, we put them to bed. Mikie, the world's soundest sleeper, passes out immediately. Hannah, the world's lightest sleeper, will not go to sleep unless you lay in bed snuggling her. And, even then she wants to have a conversation for a good forty minutes. 

Once we overcome the hurdle of getting them to sleep, we encounter another problem. We don't go to sleep for another 3 hours. In college, you could just walk to your friend down the hall or hang out in the common area. But, in a hotel?  We lay in the adjacent bed reading, occasionally daring to watch TV with the volume really lowdown as not to disturb Hannah. 

Worse, imagine that your college roommate is scared of the dark. And, for some reason insists on having half the lights on to fall asleep. I, who am a light sleeper (especially since having kids), woke up every two hours when I came out of REM sleep because I thought the light filtering though my lids was the sun and that I overslept. 

After the second night without sleep, we bought low wattage bulbs for the lights. 

After the third night without sleep, I took a risk and turned off the lights during the night. 

Now, I leave the bathroom light on with the door cracked so that the room is dark enough for me to sleep. But, if the kids wake up, they won't panic. 

Problem #2:  TV. First, the kids are not used to live television.  Mikie keeps asking us to "pause" the TV.  Hannah keeps asking us to put on (insert a show that is not on), demanding that we turn it on "On Demand". We've given up trying to explain that we don't have a DVR. 

Second, there is only one TV. So, just like in college, we need to agree on what to watch. This is less of an adjustment for Mike and I, because we usually watch what the kids want to watch when they are awake and agree on what to watch together when they are asleep. But, the kids are not used to agreeing. If Hannah was watching Caillou, Mikie would ask to watch Loony Tunes in our bedroom. If Mikie was watching something Hannah didn't want to watch, she would scream/ask to watch Netflix on the computer, and, in many instances, end up in time out. 

Problem #3:  Imposing time out when there are only two rooms. My solution has been to make everyone suffer by turning off all electronic devices and make them sit on separate beds. Mikie's solution is to threaten to put Hannah in the bathroom by herself. His way is very effective because of problem #4...

Problem #4:  Hannah's SEVERE separation anxiety.  Hannah will not allow us to leave her alone for even a second lately. Worse, Hannah considers herself "alone" if I am not occupying the same space as her AND she has an unobstructed view of me from where she is. This means I can't leave her in the car for the ten seconds it takes me to walk around to her door and unbuckle her car seat. She begs Mikie to stay in the car until I get to her door. This anxiety also extends to me leaving her I the hotel room with Mike and Mikie to do laundry, and, occasionally, to me walking into the bathroom to shower or empty my bladder. 

Problem #5:  Communal, coin operated laundry room.  We have to carry the laundry down a flight of stairs. This requires appropriate dress in case you should encounter other hotel patrons on your way to the guest laundry room. Plus, physically carrying a basket of laundry down the stairs.  At home, I would throw everything down the stairs and pick it up, or kick it, around the corner to the laundry area.  Then, I need to find an empty machine (there are only two washers, only one of which is high efficiency, and two dryers) and, $3 in quarters per load ($1.50 for the washer and $1.50 for the dryer). Oh, and, I need to keep track of when I started the load so that I can run back downstairs before someone "tables" my wet clothes. 

Problem #6:  Parking. Of course you would always fight for the parking spot right in front of your dorm or class. Especially if you went to school where it snowed. And, if you didn't get that spot, you might have to make multiple trips to and from your car to get your books, groceries, Ghanian drum, etc. back inside your dorm. Now, imagine doing that with two other people, one of whom doesn't have the ability to carry her own things. In the pouring rain. When the closest parking spot is a block away. 

I THOUGHT I could solve this predicament by pulling up to the front door, unloading Mikie and all our stuff (book bags, lunch boxes, work laptop, purse, etc) into the foyer. Mikie is responsible enough to watch our stuff while Hannah and I park the car and run back through the rain with the umbrella. The glitch in my brilliant scheme:  Hannah's SEVERE separation anxiety. While I unloaded the car and Mikie was in the foyer, Hannah was "alone in the car" (if you disregard the fact that I was in and out of the car every 15 seconds).  In her mind, I had forgotten her, and she was hysterical by the time we parked and ran back to the hotel. 

Problem #7:  Cooking. Similar to college, we are eating a lot of pasta and things that can be prepared in a microwave. We do have a "kitchen" with a full size refrigerator, sink, dishwasher, microwave, and stove. But, no oven. And, since the room is so small, I haven't braved sautéing chicken for fear of setting off the smoke alarm/sprinkler system. Which Mike succeeded in doing when he fried me an egg the night we decided to have breakfast for dinner. 

On the upside, we are relocating to a new hotel next Friday when school ends. This way, we're closer to the new house, can reduce our commute on Monday morning. And, the new hotel has a pool (Ooh! Ahh!)

And, we only have 10 more days until we close on the new house...

Love, the Trahans