What Have I Done?

I think I’ve created a pair of monsters.

One of the things I love doing is walking through interesting homes. Usually, the ones I find interesting are old or oddly shaped or different in some way from the cookie cutter houses I find around me.  And I usually take my kids with me.

They love open houses and would be happy spending the entire day going from one to another, picking out their bedrooms, imagining what it would be like to live there and getting design ideas.

This past weekend, my husband was gone for the day. We went on some errands and then we went exploring. This might have been a mistake.

First, we checked out some estates on the way to Basking Ridge. They were huge. We couldn’t see their insides because even the ones that were for sale were by appointment only and didn’t offer open houses. My current house, which is a nice size, could fit in their garage and still have room for three or four cars. They were gorgeous. I could have spent hours driving up and down the road and admiring the houses from the outside.

But my kids got bored and wanted to go inside, so we found a few open houses nearby and checked them out. The two we looked at were pretty bad; although my opinion could be skewed after seeing the luxurious estates we’d driven past. It got my kids thinking about moving though.

And their thoughts were contagious.

I like my house, but it’s not as great as I used to think it was. There are definitely things about it that I wish I could change. And if I found a house I liked better, I’d consider moving.

My kids have their own wish lists. Banana Girl wants a two-story living room that she can look down from the second floor. Of course, she wants to be able to yell down to me, “Mom! I’m hungry!” And that pretty much guarantees I’ll never buy a house like that. Princess has a better shot; she wants bigger everything and a fresh start.

I keep telling them we’re not moving. But then they show me houses they’ve found online and it’s really hard to act like I don’t want to move when I find beautiful kitchens and dining rooms and stairwells.

It’s just a pipe dream right now. But man, it’s tempting.