Why We Need To Move

My husband and I have recently decided to start the lovely process of house hunting. Before we got married and before our son was in the picture, our 900 square foot rental home was ideal. It has two bathrooms, two bedrooms and a huge detached two-car garage. Perfect! We had the one bedroom as our master bedroom and then the other was downstairs and worked perfectly as a little office/craft area for myself. Certain people in our family seem to think that we should just stay here. They fail to see anything wrong with our current dwelling and think it’s a great place for the price. Let me tell you all the reasons why they are WRONG.

Remember that second bedroom that used to be my office area? Well that bedroom has become the place to store everything for the baby. We keep his clothes, his diapers, his toys, his pacifiers, his butt creams, his first aid kid…everything except for him. He stays upstairs in the master bedroom…two feet from my side of the bed. Why can’t he stay in this perfectly good room with all of his other possessions?

Well, there’s another issue with our house. It’s not in the best neighborhood. No, it’s not a terrible neighborhood, but in the past few months we’ve had issues with an empty house next door to us. In the past few months homeless people have been hanging around there, stealing various items from the abandoned dumpster. As much as I love feeling all culturally diverse, this is not what I had in mind when I thought of what my neighbors would be life. In addition to the homeless folk, we also came to find out that a wanted criminal was hiding out there. We found this out when 10 police cars showed up and began raiding the house. What a lovely thing to find out…the house that practically shares a driveway with us was housing a wanted criminal. With all of that being said, we’re not fond of leaving our one and only child unattended downstairs while we’re all snug and cozy one floor up.

We get a lot of flack for these because everyone else in our family seems to think these are not good enough reasons for him to be in our room. Well, let me throw out a few other reasons for them. Our house was built in 1890, so the upstairs master suite was an addition. In adding this room on someone messed up the calculations for our staircase. This resulted in the steps being ridiculously narrow and getting more and more narrow the closer you get to the bottom. Our last step is barely wide enough to place your foot on when going up or down.

Let’s picture this scenario…our son wakes up at three in the morning. I’m in a total daze because it’s three in the morning. I go down the stairs and there’s most likely a 75 percent chance that my ungraceful fat ass will fall because I can barely navigate those stairs when it’s three in the afternoon and I’m fairly alert. Then let’s say we decide to bring him upstairs, do you really want me taking the chance of falling while carrying our ginormous six month old up our 200 year old stairs? So obviously, the bedroom set up is not ideal for that of a family with a small child.
My next issue is the garage. It worked perfectly before. Having a detached garage was something I never really thought much about before. Fast forward to winter with a six month old…I hate it. No, no, I loathe it. I find myself leaving my car out of the garage a lot these days because it’s just that much closer to the house that way. I’ve yet to figure out what the “proper” order is for bringing in the groceries and the baby. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to bring him in the house first and then leave him unattended while I go get the groceries from my car or if I’m supposed to leave him unattended in the cold car while I bring the groceries in the house. So, what’s my grand solution? I just bring in both the baby AND the groceries at the same time.

Yes, I do feel like Super Woman some days. While my garage isn’t extremely far from the house it might as well be a 5 mile up hill trek when I’m carrying the baby, the groceries, diaper bag and the keys. And did I mention that there are four stairs leading up to our door? That makes it all the more fun
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My other issue is closet space. Evidently people in the 1890’s didn’t have that much stuff. Well, in 2013 with an infant, we have a ton of stuff. However, our house has the crappiest, smallest closets ever. There is ONE normal closet in our house, and that’s in the baby’s room. This closet is mine, for all my clothes, but it also serves as storage for just about anything else of mine that doesn’t quite have a home. Jewelry? Put in the closet. Baby bibs? Put em in the closet. Stuff that’s supposed to go to Good Will but will never make it there? Put it in the closet. Oh and did I mention that this closet does not have a door?

Our second closet is the “coat” closet. This closet got turned into a closet with a ton of shelves when baby came. Right now in this closet are the following items: Extra diapers, baby wipes, humidifier, Wii fit board, wine from our wedding, extra blankets, baby bath time items, fine china from our wedding, the extras for the Wii, some random baby clothes, my breast pumps, extra baby bottles…the list goes on and on. It’s a total mess. And did I mention that this closet also does not have a door? And this closet is in plain sight from our living room, so anyone that comes over and sits in our living room gets to see the cluster fuck of a mess that is our “coat” closet.

The third closet, is my husband’s closet. It holds approximately 30 shirts on hangers and that’s about it. It’s also only 3 feet tall, so when he wants something out of there he has to bend over to search for it. This is the only closet with doors. However, only one door actually closes. Having a 3 foot tall closet is less than ideal for my 6 foot husband.

So, the next time a relative asks me why we need to move so badly, I will simply answer with: “It’s just not enough space for us right now.” If I actually explained all of these things to them, they would come with a reason why I’m wrong for every single thing I’ve said. I can’t mentally handle that…if you really think we just need to organize better, than be my guest and get your ass over here and show me how. Personally, I don’t even know where the hell I would put this crap while I’m in the process of organizing it.