Co-habitating

It's been a bit slow on this blog lately, but my life has been ridiculously busy this past month. Why, you ask? Shouldn't I just be playing with Henry and gestating baby number 2? What else have I been up to?

Um, packing. We are moving in with my sister, her husband, and her one year old in November. The move will hopefully be short term, as we were planning on moving into my childhood home in March at the latest anyway. That house is being renovated from a labyrinthine and decaying boarding house into three separate apartments with brand new everything. But in the meantime, our family and my sister's will downsize into her three bedroom apartment.

There are several reasons why we made the decision to co-habitate, the financial benefit of sharing rent is really just the tip of the ice berg. The other big reason is that I will be 8 months pregnant when we have to move to the big house, and the idea of going through that again (last time we moved I was also 8 months pregnant) just makes me want to cry. So the plan is to do the hardest part of moving (packing up all of our useless stuff) now, and just keep out the clothes we'll need for the next four months. Oh yeah, and the truckload of stuff that Henry uses every day. That way, when March rolls around, we can move all of our neatly labeled boxes from the storage unit to the new house and unpack at our leisure.

We're also getting rid of nearly all of our furniture, and plan on getting smaller stuff when we move to the big house so that we'll have enough space there. My sister is doing something similar, packing up things she won't use until after the final move, so that there will be more space in the apartment for us. Basically, we are downsizing as best we can to make room for the new baby and all of Henry's gear.

As far as the interpersonal side goes, I think we'll be ok. Our families spend most of our time together anyway, and I actually think this move will be a good precursor to moving into the same house but in separate apartments. I think we'll feel like having our own apartments in the same house will be a move toward more privacy and independence, instead of the other way around. But we'll see! Greg and I are sort of independent people so it might be hard. That and the kids... oh the kids. They are doing better but we still have to watch them when they are together because things can get rough :) I'm hoping that sharing space will actually help them get along more consistently.

So... that's the plan. We'll soon be joining the ranks of the co-habitators. Wish us luck!