We're moving to a new house in a few weeks. It's taken some people by surprise. It's a smaller house than we live in right now (but it's not a "small" house). Several people have commented that it's strange to move to a smaller house now that we have three children. To some, we're living the dream. We have a four/five (depending on if you think a window makes a room a bedroom) house with four and a half bathrooms, a finished basement, huge kitchen etc etc. We're in the suburbs. We can't walk anywhere we actually want to go from here. I totally understand that for some that's not a problem. For me it's huge. We made a bit of a mistake when we moved here. I was sick of renting so we jumped too soon. I say a bit of a mistake as we have made some amazing friends in this neighborhood. But again, I crave a simple life. That does not include having five toilets to clean. And, as I have learned, you use the closest bathroom, which means there are always bathrooms to be cleaned. I want to walk out of my front door to go and get some milk or bread or a cup of coffee and get some exercise on the way. I don't want to drive to a gym to get exercise. I don't want to get in the car every time I want to get somewhere. Space is a luxury but in a house it's like a vacuum - it gets filled up. I HATE how much stuff we have that is there because "we might need it and we have the space".
So we're off to a new (to us) house in a walkable neighborhood. School, fantastic park and playground, and actual shops, restaurants, and businesses that I want to go to. It's taken us quite some time to find the right location but when I walked into the new house it felt like home to me, something this current house has not done in the four years we've lived here. It's not going to be easy with three children to get out of this house and settled in the new one. I can't wait to be on the other side of this. Until we lived here I have always been able to walk somewhere from wherever I lived. I felt such a huge sense of relief when we signed the contract on the new house. We drove over to the new neighborhood that night and took the children out for dinner nearby. I said to M "I feel like I've got my life back". It's VERY different from the life I led before we moved here, but it's a little closer in some positive ways.
Also, we get a "do-over" on the shared bedroom experiment. In the interests of keeping a dedicated guest room we put A & K together when she moved from a crib to a bed. Let's just say it didn't go too well. She exploits our weakness that comes from sheer exhaustion due to the new baby and will make one request after an another. She needs "tiny bit of water", a specific baby doll, different pyjamas. She climbs on Adam's bed, under her own, and tries to get in the closet. Her keen eye for fashion (!) has led to us putting a child lock on the closet to put an end to the multiple daily outfit changes but at night her determination to get in there is taken up a notch. We allowed this to go on too long. We have become more disciplined recently and things have improved. But poor old A needs his space back and in the new house each child gets their own room and guests will either get our bed or an inflatable one - depending on age/mobility of said guest.
I am really hopeful that this move will simplify our lives. Not in the short run that's for sure but we have high hopes for the future.
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