Don't fence me in

There's something about that weird pregnancy stupidness that makes women think we can do things we can't or shouldn't - like last night when I thought I could physically move a very large labrador retriever and ended up hurting myself, or the first time I was pregnant and believed I would go back to work and take the baby with me a few days a week, because everyone knows that babies just sleep all the time and never need to do things like eat or have their diapers changed at inopportune times - or forces us to make decisions we wouldn't otherwise make - like choosing wall to wall carpet in a color we'd soon regret after the pregnancy hormones settled down. Sarah knows what I'm talking about. I bet you have your own story.

Right now - well not right this moment but for the past few weekends, oh you get my meaning - Mr. C and I have been house hunting. Again. I don't love the house we live in and it's not pregnancy brain that's making me feel that way. This itch has needed to be scratched for some time. There are things I hate about our home, like the lack of an actual dining room and the location, and things I love about it, like Chicky's bedroom and, um... Yeah, that's about it. It's time to move.

We want to purchase a new house in the same town. We want a neighborhood where people do more than just wave to each other, begrudgingly, and a place where when Halloween rolls around the neighbors don't turn their lights off and pretend to be out.

Yeah, lady across the street. I'm talkin' to you. I know you're home, for chrissake. Stop being a cheapskate and buy some damn candy.

We want a feeling of community and more kids for Chicky to play with. In a nutshell everything we didn't know we would want when we bought this place. We weren't even married when we moved here and kids were at least a couple of years away. I KNOW. A whole two or three years! That's SO far away. Did you know that two or three years can go by really fast? Neither did we.

Our focus lately has been in new developments in areas around town that used to be horse farms or beautiful open land. They have names like This-Used-To-Be-A-Bucolic-Pasture-But-It-Was-Just-Going-To-Waste Estates and There-Used-To-Be-An-Apple-Orchard-Here-But-Then-We-Got-Greedy Manor. Beautiful grand houses are being built on teeny parcels of land. Or at least in my mind they're teeny parcels of land. But that's the way of this area. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Right?

Eh, not so much.

The first home that I ever purchased, with my ex-husband, was on two acres and abutted conservation land. I had more space than I knew what to do with and I thought that was the way everyone lived... until I moved from the sticks and got a fierce reality check. This is Massachusetts, Baby. If you want to live within 50 miles of Boston the land does not come cheap. As a matter of fact if you could promise your first born or a vital organ you might not have to mortgage your life away. But don't count on it.

Is it pregnancy brain that's making me consider buying one of these homes? Mr. C is enamored with these homes but he grew up in a town where the yards were the size of postage stamps. I've reasoned with myself that the backyards aren't that small. We'll be closer to parks so we'll be using those more, why would we need a huge backyard? It just means more maintenance. And the houses are large. It will be nice to have a family room we can actually use and a kitchen that will accommodate more than one person in there at a time. And we're in New England, for chrissake, we get nice weather like 30 days out of the year.

I'd feel better knowing we made the biggest financial decision of our lives with my head as screwed on as straight as it could be. Under the best of circumstances my brain is slightly skewed, so pregnant brain... Whew. It's scary. And don't even get me started on the cost. That's another post for next time. But let's just say it involves a lot of money and a huge chip on my shoulder the size of a small mountain. And an eye that won't stop twitching from the stress. And an ulcer in the making.

I can't have it all. I won't be able to have my 10 acre alpaca farm/dog kennel in a town within reasonable driving distance to civilization and that perfect trick-or-treating neighborhood. But I've never been very good at giving up on something that I want.

And right now I would like a Twinkie. I don't have any Twinkies and Chicky is in bed so I can't go out and get any and you have no idea how much that's pissing me off.