Babe and the City

On some level, I've always wanted to live in the city.  I grew up helping my family work outdoors; I couldn't stand it and said I would someday live in an apartment or "with a yard full of sand and gravel."  My parents said I'd better get a good education.

Still, life handed me almost every other kind of living situation first.  I grew up in the very definition of sprawl, in a subdivision of a suburb of a metropolitan area.  I've lived in an old house that was too big on the edge of an historic small town.  I've lived in houses so far out in the middle of nowhere that you expected a gnome to come and lead you the rest of the way.  I've given the country more than a fair shot.

When we got the opportunity to live in a city, the Yeti and I sat down and discussed where we wanted to live.  Neither one of us was interested in doing the suburb thing again.  Ultimately, we decided that if we were going to move to a city, we were really going to live in the city.  We committed and sold our car before we even boarded the plane.  It was a bit of a gamble.

That was a few years ago, and if anything, we're even more enamored with the city now than when we moved here.  In the future the biggest challenge is going to be the cost of space aspect; we're making a one-bedroom work for now, with Thumper still an infant, but it's not going to work forever.  And while we haven't decided if we want to go for any more children, that's an issue to consider as well.  I'm not sure I've ever seen a three-bedroom anything in our area.

All of our friends seemed to view living in the city as an experiment or an experience and have since moved to the suburbs.  They all claim to be more comfortable out there, but the idea still makes us shudder.  I love walking to wherever I need to go.  I love that the Yeti doesn't have a giant commute to work, so he gets to spend more time each day with Thumper and me.

We've never been particularly intimidated by raising a child here, and I think I have a sushi restaurant to thank for that.  The first week we were in town we tried a local sushi restaurant.  A couple with a small child - maybe seven years old - sat at the bar in the front, watching the chef.  I gathered from overhearing snatches of conversation that they were about to travel to Japan for the first time.  The kid was trying out her Japanese on the chef.  It was precious and like something out of a movie.  I was instantly convinced that I, too, could produce a sophisticated City Baby.

For now my goals have shrunk considerably; just the thought that Thumper will one day use the bathroom on his own seems like a dream.  Still, I don't think family and city living are incompatible - far from it - and while ultimately the well-being of our family comes first, I'm not going to automatically assume that the suburbs are always the best choice.

So far it's been going pretty swimmingly.  We didn't have much reason to use a car at all for almost the entire first year we were here and relied entirely on public transportation and the Uber car service when we left our walking sphere.  The second year, I was pregnant and the OB and hospital weren't the closest (a tradeoff for the experience I wanted).  Occasionally we'd use Car2Go, which we absolutely loved, but which unfortunately isn't a good option anymore because they're only two-seater smart cars.  I've heard Car2Go is trying out a four-door option in Europe - yes, please!

Since I've had Thumper we no longer have a regular need for a car.  The family doctor's office is within an easy walking distance (though it seemed less easy when I was only a week post-partum, let me tell you), so getting those shots on the regular is not a big event.  At one point it occurred to us that Thumper was almost four months old and he'd only been in a car three times.  We rented a Zipcar to try it out and make sure it worked for us.  It did, and then we couldn't really think of anywhere we needed to go.  I still hold out hope for a 4-door Car2Go option, but honestly, it's not like we're being held back otherwise.  We aren't just "making it work"; we want to be here.

Baby2Go