Oops. Is My Plate Too Full…Again?

Are you a planner? Do you have a timeline for milestones in your life? How hectic are you willing to make your life in order to follow that milestone timeline? Well, consider this scenario: you have a 19-month-old son, you’re pregnant, you’re in the process of building a home, you’ve sold your current home before you’ve even broke ground on your new home, and, as a result, you’ve moved back in with your parents during the building process. This scenario is my current life. Call my husband and I crazy, but we can justify our insanity!

Baby #2, now or later?

The first item in this scenario that increased the complexity is being pregnant. At the beginning of the year, there was a lot of discussion in the form of, “How far apart do we want our children to be?,” “Should we move before or after baby #2?,” and “Should we have baby #2 before going to Scotland in September of 2019 for my sister’s wedding?” So many questions! Well, we decided we did want our children close together in age, and we didn’t want to wait until the fall of 2019. After the first month of trying, there wasn’t any more deciding because we were expecting our second child. It now turned in to a race against the clock to sell our home and build the house of our dreams.

When to sell?

When deciding if we wanted to move before baby #2 or if we should wait until after, there were a couple of key points that factored into our decision. For starters, the current real estate market would likely allow us to get the most money for our home that we may ever get. Second, moving before baby #2 would mean one less child we would have to pack up. With those two factors in play, there weren’t any cons that could change our mind. To eliminate the fear of not selling our home in time, we put it on the market as soon as we made the decision to build. We had six offers within the first 24 hours on the market and received more than our asking price. So far, we were winning.

Where do we live now?

Now that we sold our home, where were we going to live? Why not move in with my parents? My parents, as well as my husband’s parents, live within about five miles of where our new home will be. This has worked in our favor for several reasons. A big plus being that my mom watches our son while we work. This meant we didn’t have to drop him off in the morning or pick him up after work.

While living with my parents, I have had more free time than I have had since before Daniel was born. I don’t have to clean, cook dinner, or maintain any landscaping. Heck, half the time my in-laws are inviting us over for dinner as well, and we actually have had to decide where we were eating dinner that night. Not a bad decision to have to make, especially when you’re pregnant and find your energy store near depleted.

Stalkers

With our current living quarters being only about five miles from our new home, it is very convenient to take a drive by and see the progress or stop over whenever the builder has a question for us. Driving by the home has actually become a daily thing and is quite addicting. Plus, my husband and father-in-law are the masons. It’s pretty fun being able to take our son there every day to lend a hand to Grandpa and Daddy.

On the flip side, I will need everyone to keep me in their thoughts as I embark on the journey of living just minutes away from my parents and in-laws. As I re-read the last sentence, I see this as a possible future post and most likely a laugh for all of you at my expense…