I have a confession to make: I have spent the past 6 months loathing living in our tiny house. I don't hate tiny houses in general. In fact, I don't even hate our tiny house. This tiny house would be perfect for a single person. Even as a couple, we had a very functional house.
As far as tiny houses go, ours is small: 8'x18'. Many tiny house families live in a tiny house twice as long as ours! Our house was designed and built with a single occupant in mind. But we were still able to make it work with two of us.
And then a little 7 pound bundle of crying and screaming joy was tossed into our lives. He spent about the first 4 months of his life crying and screaming, too. He did, however, double in size to 15 pounds (which is a good thing, for him. I, too, feel as though I've doubled in size. That isn't a good thing. But I digress.)
I'm sure that some people transition smoothly into the realm of parenthood, but friends, I am not one of them. I blamed many of our difficulties in the tiny house. To be honest, things may not have been easier in a big house... I have no idea.
Abel, I love him. But he was not an easy baby. He had trouble eating and gaining weight- requiring a whole slew of equipment to express milk. He is a spitter, requiring bibs and burp cloths and extra onesies and creating damp stains all over every surface of our house, including me. His record was 60 times in one day. The spit up is real, guys.
Around 4 months, we identified his food allergies. It's funny. Alex and I prefer to do things the "natural" way. We moisturized his eczema with coconut oil and Shea butter. Since many breastfed babies react to dairy, I eliminated all milk products from my diet and drank almond milk with my cereal. Turns out he is allergic to nuts, which are in all of the above products. Had I fed him formula and used Vaseline, he never would have had the rashes and upset tummy. Since eliminating allergens from my diet, a happy baby emerged from my red-faced, rashy screamer. Poor boy.
I guess all of those things would be hard no matter where I was. But during that time, I felt like I had no escape. When I returned to work after maternity leave, I was both relieved for a break, but broken at leaving.
Part of the reason I wanted to move into the tiny house is so that I could stay at home with Abel. However, I have been finishing out this school year. Leaving my son every day was hard. Really hard. And I don't want to do it anymore. I have only 4 weeks left, and summer cannot come fast enough. As much as I LOVE teaching, I hate being out of the house for 10-11 hours per day. I get 1.5 hours with Abel in the evenings, 10 minutes in the middle of the night, and 15 minutes in the morning.
And when I think about that, I'm reminded why we made the choice we did.
It took us some time, but we've found our function in this tiny house. It involved changing some things around so we could use the space better. It involved making some different parenting choices than we planned, because some things work better in 1500 square feet than they do in 150 square feet.
If I were to buy a house now, I would still buy a tiny house. But it would have stairs and a bedroom for Abel and a sink in the bathroom and and two burners on the stove and a glorious arm chair that wouldn't make my butt fall asleep when I sat in it nursing for an hour.
But as my life is calming down a bit, I'm falling in love with our house again, just as it is. And that's a good thing. It's time for that.
As far as tiny houses go, ours is small: 8'x18'. Many tiny house families live in a tiny house twice as long as ours! Our house was designed and built with a single occupant in mind. But we were still able to make it work with two of us.
And then a little 7 pound bundle of crying and screaming joy was tossed into our lives. He spent about the first 4 months of his life crying and screaming, too. He did, however, double in size to 15 pounds (which is a good thing, for him. I, too, feel as though I've doubled in size. That isn't a good thing. But I digress.)
I'm sure that some people transition smoothly into the realm of parenthood, but friends, I am not one of them. I blamed many of our difficulties in the tiny house. To be honest, things may not have been easier in a big house... I have no idea.
Abel, I love him. But he was not an easy baby. He had trouble eating and gaining weight- requiring a whole slew of equipment to express milk. He is a spitter, requiring bibs and burp cloths and extra onesies and creating damp stains all over every surface of our house, including me. His record was 60 times in one day. The spit up is real, guys.
Around 4 months, we identified his food allergies. It's funny. Alex and I prefer to do things the "natural" way. We moisturized his eczema with coconut oil and Shea butter. Since many breastfed babies react to dairy, I eliminated all milk products from my diet and drank almond milk with my cereal. Turns out he is allergic to nuts, which are in all of the above products. Had I fed him formula and used Vaseline, he never would have had the rashes and upset tummy. Since eliminating allergens from my diet, a happy baby emerged from my red-faced, rashy screamer. Poor boy.
I guess all of those things would be hard no matter where I was. But during that time, I felt like I had no escape. When I returned to work after maternity leave, I was both relieved for a break, but broken at leaving.
Part of the reason I wanted to move into the tiny house is so that I could stay at home with Abel. However, I have been finishing out this school year. Leaving my son every day was hard. Really hard. And I don't want to do it anymore. I have only 4 weeks left, and summer cannot come fast enough. As much as I LOVE teaching, I hate being out of the house for 10-11 hours per day. I get 1.5 hours with Abel in the evenings, 10 minutes in the middle of the night, and 15 minutes in the morning.
And when I think about that, I'm reminded why we made the choice we did.
It took us some time, but we've found our function in this tiny house. It involved changing some things around so we could use the space better. It involved making some different parenting choices than we planned, because some things work better in 1500 square feet than they do in 150 square feet.
If I were to buy a house now, I would still buy a tiny house. But it would have stairs and a bedroom for Abel and a sink in the bathroom and and two burners on the stove and a glorious arm chair that wouldn't make my butt fall asleep when I sat in it nursing for an hour.
But as my life is calming down a bit, I'm falling in love with our house again, just as it is. And that's a good thing. It's time for that.