Hellobee

Last spring when we found out we were going to have two new additions to our family, we immediately put our city home on the market in order to seek out extra space in the suburbs. At the time it didn’t feel like a difficult decision because we were so overwhelmed and overloaded at the idea of having 3 young children, that moving wasn’t even a question for us. However, if we hadn’t been quite so stressed, the move would have been much more difficult.

When we bought our last home we really felt like we’d “made it.” We were in a desirable neighborhood of Chicago, a good city school district, and were close to public transportation, an endless amount of restaurants, farmer’s markets, and a great park. We felt like we had everything. Except for, you know, a yard. Or a parking space. Or an easy to navigate floor plan. We had definitely made some concessions in order to live in such a desirable location; our home was a fraction of the cost of the single family homes on our street.

For us, the concessions were worth it. The prime location and access to everything far outweighed not being able to park near our house. We could walk to Miss H’s daycare, pediatrician, and to multiple grocery stores, so driving on a daily basis wasn’t necessary.

With infant twins and a toddler though, we truly felt that staying where we were would have been a struggle. In the short term, we certainly could have managed it. But we knew we would have quickly run out of room and then we’d be trying to sell a house overflowing with baby gear, attempting to schedule showings around nap schedules.

Miss H running free in our (suburban) backyard!

As I processed what it would mean leaving the home and neighborhood we loved, the place that Miss H had called home for over 2 years, I made myself a list of all of the “pros” of moving to the suburbs. It’s actually been really fun looking back on this list, and I thought it would be interesting to share it here:

• We will soon have a bigger house with a yard, a garage, a playroom, and a guest room. We’ll be able to have BBQs and birthday parties, a swing set, and a place for kids to run around. And I can plant a garden! Yes to all of these things! We recently got our swing set and had Miss H’s birthday at our house. We love having a garage and a backyard, and planted a garden this past spring.
• We can stop storing things at my parents’ house. Yes! So much storage in our new house. My parents no longer have any of our things at their house, which feels great!
• The further out of the city we move, the cheaper childcare will potentially be. Miss H’s daycare is much cheaper, although nanny costs for twins are about the same as what we would pay in the city.
• No more sounds of beer bottles being poured into the dumpsters behind our house late at night (we share an alley with some restaurants). The suburbs are definitely much quieter!
• The view from my kitchen won’t be an alley. Our kitchen looks out on our backyard — much better than a view of restaurant delivery trucks.
• Our yard won’t be full of garbage ALL THE TIME from all of the careless people who walk past. This is definitely true as well – between people out and about late at night and kids going to and from the park during the day, there was always a lot of garbage dropped in front of our old house.
• I won’t have to become a pro at parallel parking! (i.e. I’ll be able to drive my kids more places) Everywhere I go has a parking lot and we have a garage, so I feel much more confident taking my kids places. This is huge for me as I always felt very “stuck” at our old house.
• I’ll have a real master closet, possibly a master bathroom (!!), and maybe even a linen closet if I dream big. Sadly, we had to give up on the dream of having a big walk in closet and a master bathroom. Oh how I dream of having a master bathroom one day! We do, however, have a fantastic linen closet and a big bathroom closet for toiletries. Both of those are pretty fantastic.

All of these things really do speak to the pros of moving out of the city and into the suburbs. We’re in a great school district in a nice community, and we have plenty of great things just a few minutes away by car (pediatrician, shopping mall, grocery stores, train station, daycare, library, etc).

On the flip side, there are some definite cons:

• There are not a lot of things to walk to. Fortunately we have a park about a half of a mile away, so that helps. But the twins’ nanny has yet to meet anyone else to have play dates with because there aren’t many people at the park during the day.
• We not only have to drive everywhere but we now own two cars out of necessity. Which, with 3 small children, will likely mean we will soon own 6 convertible car seats.
• It seems harder to meet people. Children play in their own backyards instead of going to the park and there aren’t as many playrooms to go to. After almost a year we still do not know most of our neighbors, and we haven’t really had any play dates with kids from Miss H’s daycare. It feels lonely at times!

In the end, I am very happy we made the move that we did because having space for our children to run and play was important to us, along with having good public schools. I miss many things about the life we had when we were living in the center of everything, but I also love all of the space we now have for our children and also knowing that in a couple of years when Miss H starts kindergarten, I won’t have to be stressed about where she is going or entering lotteries for other schools, with two more kids following behind her!

Have you made a move from the suburbs or the city? Do you have any regrets?