First, oh wow am I going to miss our neighbors. Our "best" neighbors, the ones we see the most and have the best relationship with, are just precious precious people who love us well. Julianna spends hours at their home. HOURS! The other kids too, but Julianna especially adores her "ayi" and loves to go visit.
And the second thought, totally unrelated, but front-and-center when I look at this picture: I am so tired of parenting in a parking lot. Our complex, like many others, is overrun with vehicles. Car ownership is rising at lightning fast rates. It's rare to find an apartment complex that planned well (even those just a few years old) for this massive invasion of personal vehicles. Cars are stuffed and tucked into every nook and cranny - anywhere and everywhere turned into a parking spot.
Yes, I realize our family is part of the problem. We want a spot for our vehicle just as much as anyone else :)
But one of the requests on the top of our list in our search for new housing was this: only underground parking! And we got it! Our new complex (brand new!) claims a massive underground parking garage (elevator access direct to our front door) and that means that there are NO CARS ON GROUND LEVEL!!!! Woohoo! There are some car free areas in our current complex, but far too few. And for the kids, they want to ride bikes (fast) and speed around corners (top speed, Isaac always says!). They want to play soccer without loosing balls under parked cars. I want to be able to take the kids outside without constantly keeping an eye out for the next approaching vehicle.
As the emotional cost of moving starts to mount (leaving friends and neighbors, leaving a home that we have loved for three years), it's helpful for me to get excited about the benefits of our new place. And one biggie: No more parenting in a parking lot!
3 comments:
If from the back, everyone in that photo looks happy! Know you're going to miss your neighbors. Love you!
I am looking forward to living not on a busy busy street! We don't have a sidewalk on our side of the street to help out. But the moving is overwhelming!
We thankfully had underground parking in our last place too. It was wonderful! Even if we did have to walk all the way around the building and then all the way to the back of the lot to get to our car.
In our previous place, there was underground parking, but it cost 180,000Y to buy a spot! Or you could rent one for a few hundred US a month. Parking on the street was 200Y, which was still no bargain, but it helped avoid the craziness that you have there (we had that at our first place X 10). It's insane how many more cars there are now!
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