The house that built me

I want to write about the little apartment we live in. Little is an understatement by the way. It has a small living room, a small dining room, an even smaller kitchen, two rooms and for some reason a really large bathroom. It's what I was able to afford at the time. I moved in here when I was seven months pregnant with Boston, excited to have a place to get ready to make a home for my baby but really nervous about living alone for the first time. She was born and I brought her here. I brought her to our home. It holds more memories than I can count. When she was a few months old and would wake up all the time during the night I would rock her sitting up in my bed. I didn't have anyone to help me to get up with her and it was one of the many way we formed the bond we have, she depended on just me and truthfully I needed and depended on her just as much. We did 'tummy time' together on the floor when she got a bit bigger in the living room. She crawled for the first time in her room to my friend, Tara's Pepsi bottle. Her first steps were right by the front door. I think I have taken more pictures of her and her and I in front of this little apartment than I dare admit.

Tanner and I have been looking for a place we want to call home for the next few years that fits our family better than our little two bedroom apartment and this week we move into our townhouse we have chose. I am excited. Two bathrooms! Three rooms! Stairs! A kitchen that is double the size and so much more play room. So many memories are going to be made there. I am so excited. But, at the same time I felt a hint of sadness leaving these old memories behind.

Occasionally I drive by a house I lived by up by campus with my two friends Dayne and Sam and I reminisce on our fun times there. I drove by the house I lived by in Dayton and remembered the days spent in that little home. When I'm at my parents house I like to be in my old room and get lost in thoughts of my life during that time in that house. And all of those places remind me of happy (and sad) times and I am thankful for the memories but it also makes me feel a slight piece of sadness knowing that all I have at those places are memories. This one is just different because they aren't just my memories but memories of my baby.

We move as a family and I am so excited and nervous. I heard the song by Miranda Lambert called, "The House That Built Me". In it she is referring to her childhood home but really the house that built me is this tiny apartment we are saying goodbye to. I learned how to be a mom here, how to care and love someone more than myself. This is also the first place Tanner and I first lived together. And (bless our kids hearts for being troopers and sharing one room) the first place they got to know each other at. Home was never a place to me... it was a pair of big brown eyes from a little girl who called me mom. But, now I have gotten to expand that and home is also three little blonde ponytails that bounce around the kitchen and hugs from a man who loves me and does everything in the world he can for me. Locations change but home is still the same.

I am thankful and scared and excited and I think ready. I will forever be grateful for this little apartment; the house that built me.

XO:

Ashlynn 

Our very first picture together in front of our home when she was two weeks old.