Older Daughter comes to visit

We knew she'd be coming up at some time before Easter, but we didn't know it would be this weekend and we didn't know she'd be bringing the Boyfriend.

It's the bringing the Boyfriend part that causes the problem.

Not that we don't like the Boyfriend. We do. He's a nice young man and sure to be a success in his chosen field. But we don't have a guest wing where he can stay comfortably; the last few times he's visited, he's crashed on the couch in the den.

Which is fine... except that this is where the TV is. It's where the computer is. It's where I would have been sitting and having my coffee this morning... if he weren't in there asleep. Because he and Older Daughter were helping a friend of theirs move into a new apartment in the City and they both, apparently, have this week off. They weren't going to be up and about as the rest of us dashed out for work and school.

It's a disruption -- OK, I probably shouldn't fall asleep each night in front of the TV, but I do more often than not. Last night, though, I headed up to bed before the late news came on because... well... the Boyfriend was already sitting on the couch. You might be wondering why the young man that the Boyfriend and Older Daughter helped to move yesterday didn't suggest that the Boyfriend crash at his place. I wondered, too.

And I have formulated this hypothesis: I think adult kids see the family home as theirs still. We certainly encourage them to come home to visit as often as they wish. (OK, we moved a couple of times in the middle of the night and left no forwarding address. But they still found us....) So I think they think it entirely natural and appropriate to invite people to visit with them, just as they might invite someone to stay with them at their own apartment.

I think, on balance, that's probably a good thing and says something positive about our family.

But I want my couch back.