Gulliver's House

Most homeowners don't say this, but there are a lot of days I find myself nostalgic for our old apartments. And not for the traditional reasons one may expect: city living, no maintenance, lower rent payments vs mortgage etc... Nope. I am talking getting misty over my lack of living space. What? You're shocked? It's okay. Anyone would be, for it's a rather peculiar reason to wax nostalgic over.

We lived in our last two bedroom apartment with our firstborn for over a year before we moved into our current house. I couldn't begin to tell you the square footage of the apartment other than small; and we made full use of our tiny deck as living space when weather permitted. But one thing that apartment forced us to do was to keep our belongings and baby gear in check, not buying what there wasn't space for. Despite the urge to spoil our firstborn madly, we actually cut him off from toys at one point until his first birthday just to be able to make room for presents at his actual birthday. Poor kid had to learn to play with what he owned and push through the boredom as an infant. Life is just full of rough lessons when you're young.

Then came the house. The incredible shrinking house. We planned on having "just one more" child, so we bought an adorable three bedroom starter home in a lovely cul-de-sac. Ha! We moved in expecting, and two weeks later found out we were expecting twins. Shrink. Already down one bedroom. Then the gear. Gear for one child takes up a ridiculous amount of space. Now our sitting room and family room are consumed by baby gear and toys for two and three. Shrink.  Just trying to navigate around two exersaucers alone is insane. Now that the twins are mobile and the baby gates are back up everywhere, keeping them from crawling places they shouldn't. Shrink.

Suddenly you feel a little bit like Gulliver peering into the tiny castle. Or what once seemed like your spacious new house so full of promise and storage. Now it's run amok with toys and baby gear  spilling out of every corner. The gear may eventually go away, but the toys will keep coming in all shapes and sizes until one day I find there are three grown men who don't live here anymore. Then, somehow, in all the found space, I suspect my husband and I will find ourselves longing for the days of Gulliver.