Small Blessings

After congratulatory hugs and a few tears I asked our friends if they would start looking for a bigger flat now they were expecting.

I got the weirdest look.

While my dear Hungarian friend politely replied, "No, the baby sleeps in your room for the first year anyway" she was actually thinking, "What kind of question is that?!?! Why on earth would we need a bigger place?"

Something in my brain snapped. She's right. We don't need so much space. The look she gave me was a completely appropriate response. Man am I a spoiled brat.

Since Audrey's birth our employers have provided our housing, in both cases a one bedroom apartment. Not ideal but it forces us to put this new mindset into practice. Okay okay, I would LOVE for Audrey to have her own room (more like for Ryan and I to have our room to ourselves) but the smallness of our places has been fantastic. This was thrown into sharp relief last weekend as we house-sat for our friends whom Nemes lives with (yay for actually living with our puppy for a few days!). They live in a beautiful three bedroom, tri-level townhouse. It is completely the type of home I hope to live in someday but spending five days there showed me just how good we have it in our little space. Since it's just the three of us right now, we don't need a lot of room. In fact, the less the better. It's easy to keep Audrey's toys corralled (though there usually is a trail of destruction), we always know where everyone's at and I don't have to haul Audrey around with me when I need to pee or get something from the bedroom. As our family grows we will need more space, especially when the kids are teenagers and need privacy, but I thoroughly enjoy that right now we can comfortably fit into a bitty apartment. 

Finding smallness as a blessing is not easy. Whether it's a living space, money, friends or anything else, we always want more. But more is rarely better. It usually makes us lazy and selfish. I know if I had all the money in the world I would be about the worst person in the world. So I am thankful for this time (even though it's likely to continue all our life) when I can learn to be satisfied with less and better understand what I truly need. Hopefully then I will recognize anything 'big' that comes along as a great blessing and not something I'm entitled to.