Help Me! I'm Drowning In Indecision!

As most of you probably know, I have four children. And if you've read this post, or this post, you know that I hate my house, and have only two bedrooms. And a husband, let's not forget him! That makes six people, and two bedrooms. To be fair, they are very large bedrooms, but still. Only two.

Right at the top of the stairs we also have a fairly large room, but the stairs come right into it, and there's no window that would be in the room if we walled part of it off (and the fabulous 1925 construction of this house won't support a dormer), and you have to walk through it to get to both the other bedrooms. Currently we use it as a family/catch-all room. "Family" because it has a tv and a futon, "catch-all" because it's also crammed with everything normal people, with normal closet-filled houses would put out of site.

So you can see that this room is not a proper bedroom - just a space where someone could sleep.

One of the bedrooms houses all three boys. The other - the math is pretty simple here - belongs to my husband, myself, and my two year old.

Can you see the problem here? Can you see the difficult position I'm in? Can you see how I need an answer to this dilemma? (Moving would be an acceptable solution, if only it were an option). What do I do with all the children?? When do my husband and I get our room back??? I have a few possible scenarios, but none of them seem all that great.

First lets take the boys room. Do any of you know what it's like to have three kids in the same room? It isn't always terrible - especially if we stagger their bedtimes, but it definitely has its drawbacks. For instance, all it takes is for one kid to be feeling very awake, very obnoxious, or get the giggles, and bedtime becomes a joke. Especially if someone else is legitimately tired, and trying to go to sleep. The other night when the Missionaries stopped by just after we'd shut them all in there, it sounded like a war zone with all the boys yelling simultaneously at each other to shut-up.

This word is not even allowed in our house! I'm sure I would never say such a thing...

Anyhow, listening to all the yelling (and wondering why they couldn't understand that if someone actually WOULD shut-up they might get some peace), and trying to nod and smile at the Missionaries, brought my problem into the forefront again.

How do I get peace at bedtime? What to do with the girl-child? Can that room hold one more? Can that room stand ONE MORE VOICE??? I know this will come as a shock, but despite her very feminine and lady-like manner, the girl can hold her own when she's around her brothers. Besides that, she would be way too much of a novelty in there. They'd be so busy playing with her, and trying to make her laugh, no one would EVER get to sleep.

So much for option one.

On to option two. This would be moving someone out into the "family/catch-all" room, and then filling the void in the boys room with Miss Meara. Sound good? Maybe not. In the first place, we like to use the family room. And (even though this sounds totally paranoid) I worry that if there was a fire, anyone sleeping out there would die fast from smoke inhalation, since there's no door. PLUS, even with one kid out of the bedroom, putting Meara in there would cause all the same problems. She'd still be loud, and she'd still get everyone distracted from sleeping.

This makes me wonder if I should just stick with plan one after all.

Or, we could just leave things the way they are and hope that some miracle will occur, making moving an immediate possibility.

But I really want her out of my room. I am NOT a kid-in-the-bedroom kind of mom. I can't stand it that whenever she wakes up - night or morning - she knows I'm right there.

And so it goes. I run these exact options through my head, with these exact arguments, follow this exact pattern, and end up exactly where I am now.

Completely undecided.

So if anyone out there has an opinion - or can see an option I haven't thought of yet - please share your wisdom with me! There must be a best (or at least better-than-all-the-rest) option out there... If only I could see what it was.

I'll be waiting in suspense for all your sage advice.

Please don't disappoint me.

(But if you can't think of any advice, sympathy and commiseration are totally acceptable). (Thanks).