Right Here, Right Now

When we got pregnant, a lot of people started asking us if it changed our timeline for staying in New York.  I would be lying if I said it hadn't crossed my mind several hundred times in the past year, but I am even more confident in our decision now than I was a year ago.  Yes, I so wish that we lived closer to our families, and there are days that I desperately want a car and a house and a Publix down the road.  Living in the city is hard and has gotten harder since little miss May arrived, but I love this place and our life here.  There isn't any place I would rather live right now.

You see, while it takes me two trips to get May, the car seat, the stroller and the diaper bag down our apartment stairs and onto the sidewalk; and every time we venture out the door, I have to bundle May up in a snow suit that she hates putting on, so she screams bloody murder while I am putting her in it; and I can't just open the back door to let Bo out, I have to do the aforementioned routine, even if it is just to walk a couple of blocks; and I have to make my own network of friends with babies because we don't have close friends nearby that have ventured into parenthood yet; and our 550 square foot apartment feels even smaller now that May and her things have arrived and taken over.....there are so many more things that I love about living here right here, right now.

May sees as many new things in our walk to the park as she would in a week of driving around in a car in any other city we would choose; and we have our choice of this, this, this, or this mommy and me class (and that is just in our neighborhood); and May learns every single day that the world is made up of people of all different kinds of nationalities; and we can pick up and go to four different zoos or an aquarium any day of the week; and we walk to church and are learning what it means to live in community; and there is a kids sing-a-long in a local bar every Wednesday morning; and we get a lesson on our country's history just by walking around lower Manhattan; and we can walk to no less than five playgrounds without breaking a sweat; and most of all, we have wonderful friends who have taken care of us like family.

We will undoubtedly get back South at some point, but right now, we are so thankful to be right where we are.  And we are so glad that May gets to start discovering the world in this wonderful place.