Home Sick

I won't lie, the adjustment to our new (to us) house has been hard. We're close enough to our old house that Tommy stayed in the same preschool and we are in the old neighborhood fairly often. Plus every time he sees "our" G on the mountain he asks if we're almost home. (Because it used to mean exactly that.)

But this week, the home sickness had us both in tears.

Because we moved under less-than-desirable circumstances (read: I was crazy mad at our landlord and NOBODY wanted to move) I tried to explain it to a concerned Tommy.

Me: Well, our Landlord gave us a letter that says he wants to live here, so we have to move to a new house.
T: What's a Landlord?
M: He's the guy who is the boss of this house.
T: Our house-boss?
M: Sure. Close enough.

Fast forward to this week on our way home from work
T: "mom, I just want to go to our real home. From our house-boss. Did he said he's all done there now?"
M: "No babe, we can't live there anymore, we have our new house instead."
T: "I really really miss our real house, I don't want to go to our new house anymore."
M: "I miss our old house too, what do you miss about it?"
T: "Riding bikes, playing in the yard, walkin' to school, and 'member those nice guys that lived by us?" (sniffling and crying while he talks)
M: (Sniffling my own self) "So SO many nice guys that lived by us. I miss them too."
T: "Maybe we could visit our old house if we want to."
M: We can't go inside, but we can go drive by and wave to it from the car if you'd like.

So we did. We drove by slowly, waved and wept. We waved to the Carlson's and Ruby's house. We waved to our sledding hill and Maggie Dog. We remembered walking to church and then.....we saw a for sale sign in the front yard.

Tommy asked what the sign said. I told him it was for sale, so someone new can buy our old house. He wants us to buy it. And he nearly had me convinced with his emotional attachment to that neighborhood.

But the flooding in the massage room, the cracks in the foundation, the weird weird weird layout and bedrooms with no closets, the shoddy workmanship on any of the "remodel" work, the yard (oh that yard....) We don't REALLY want to put that kind of money - and labor - into it. But my goodness, that little boy preyed on my emotions and nearly had me convinced we wanted to buy that house today. (future Realtor? He can be very persuasive.) Enough that I got to a computer and looked up the listing. I will say, if I had the money, I would buy the empty lot for the current list price on that house. Because really it's an incredible location.

Here's hoping we buy a place soonish and we can enjoy saying "this is our real home" for the last time. At least until he's too old to care. (Does that ever happen?)