So far, we are life long renters.  I dream and scheme of the day when we will own our own home, but this is not that day, and likely not that season.  We have chosen a different path.

Why are we life long renters?  Partly, it’s because the nature of my husband’s work is such that we move along to a new town or new state every year or so.  Thankfully, he’s moved from new construction to working in shops, so we can stay put.

But a large part of the reason we rent is because we have so many children.  Instead of saving for a down payment, we pay maternity bills.  And instead of vacations, husband dear spends his two weeks a year (when he gets it) on PostPartum Dad Duty.

When I was pregnant with our fourth child, Mr S, we lived in the worst rental house ever.  My husband was working in Nowhereland, Wyoming and this was the only rental available in the nearest own (population: 635).  We didn’t have any furniture except for a toddler bed, a pack ‘n’ play, an air mattress, and one broken chair that came with the house.  We did have our TV, but no cable.  We perched it on an upside down Rubbermaid tub.

The thermostat was broken, so all that spring I would have to go down to the dirt crawl space and manually light the furnace – or blow the flame out, depending on if it was too hot or too cold.  A lot of people thought we were nuts, but you have to do what you have to do.  Believe it or not, that was not the worst feature of the house.  I won’t mention the worst feature because I don’t want to think about it.

Later, when Mr S was but a wee, wee babe, we moved to another town, in New Mexico.  Again we were hard pressed to find a rental.  We stayed (not for the first time) in a motel room that rented by the week, until the kitchenette blew up and we were forced out so they could renovate or finish torching the place or whatever.

We were homeless for a day, found a rental house in a miraculous twist, and lived there for two weeks while waiting for the city to turn on the utilities.  This is where I honed my mad skillz of cooking everything in a crockpot which I washed out in the bathtub and living out of yet another Rubbermaid tote.

Finally, we seemed to have a better job near family in Colorado.  We rented a little duplex from the parents of my friends, 750 sq. ft, 2 bedrooms.  (YES, for six people).  We moved in on my birthday, 2003.  The space was teeny tiny for four children, but it worked for us (and even better, had hard floors throughout, which are easier to clean than carpet!)  The washer was in the kitchen and the dryer was in the living room and there was no air conditioning.

And everyone told us we were done having kids, right?  We had girls, we had boys, we had more kids than most people.  We needed to settle down and buy a house.  Put down roots.  Start college funds.

And then we learned another child would be joining our family and enriching our lives.  And then husband got a layoff.  And I learned to bake bread because flour and yeast were all we had.  And Miss V was born.

And most everyone thought we were out of our minds.  I got a job (actually, two) when Miss V was 6 weeks old.  Husband dear went back to school and also found a job.  We were barely making it and were still crammed into 750 square feet.

Of course we couldn’t possibly even think of more children.   Two bedrooms, three jobs between us, part time school?  What kind of mentally unbalanced people would add to that?

Miss C was born in 2005.  I was promoted to Accounts Manager and quit my second job.  We moved.  And moved again, this time to a new state.  I quit my job.  And Mr X was born.  Close relatives told us they hoped he would be the last, because he was too many.

Mr X, one day old

Another move.  Another baby, sent from God from whom all blessings flow.  Baby A joined us in 2009.

And we still don’t own property.  We almost bought a house in 2000, a nice one with a mother-in-law in the back which could have been rented out.  Again, in 2005 we came close purchasing a fixer-upper, but life intervened and we, well, didn’t.  We had a real estate agent helping us look for houses in 2007, we never found the magical home that would fit all of us and our budget.

What could have been, if we owned our own home?  I have dreams of a homestead and chickens and planting an asparagus patch because I know we’ll be there for more than two years.

We could have had that, some say, if we had been “smarter” about all these children.  If we had carefully planned one, two, or even three at suitable intervals.  Finding and affording a two or three bedroom house would not have been difficult.  We could have had our happy homestead.

What could have been is a life with less beauty, less wonder, fewer messes, less love.

What could have been was a life without Miss V

Without Miss C

Without Mr X

Without Baby A

A life without these babies, who make my soul sing?  A life without these people, fearfully and wonderfully made and placed specifically in my life by the Creator of the Universe, whose angels behold the face of God?

Unthinkable.

I wouldn’t want a life without them.  I wouldn’t miss this life, this adventure, for the world.  And certainly not for a house, not for anything else the world tells me I should have instead of children.

It’s hard to be surrounded by constant demands and small children and never ending chores.  It’s hard to nurse the baby in the middle of the night and then help the toddler who wet the bed and then get up and make breakfast.  It’s nigh impossible to keep up with the laundry and the snacks.

But it would be even harder to live a life full of alone and wonder what could have been.