Screaming, crying, chocolate-chip waffles. Sometimes, these days of living in a tiny house with two children under five grows chaotic. It seems no matter which direction I walk, in this two hundred square foot space, my little ones are always there. Some days, I think back to life before living tiny. A grand, luxury apartment with so much more space; space to roam, to run. Space to clean, space for guests, space for more stuff. Empty wasted space. Even in that large apartment, my little ones still stood constantly at my side. Ask any parent, no matter how big their home is, children are not quick to offer personal space or relaxation. Since we decided to live tiny, I have grown to appreciate a few things I hadn’t considered before. Things like relationships with my neighbors, out-of-reach life goals, gratitude, and focusing on my faith and the natural world around me.
Any mother’s recollection of raising children is the same: cleaning, laundry, cooking, working, crying, exhaustion and love. I would say words like cleaning and cooking, come up the most often. How parents wish we could spend more time loving and less time cleaning. I think back to our old beautiful, hollow apartment from before, in the middle of the city. How important it had seemed then. All the furniture, the spare guest rooms, closet space, and endless cabinets for guest towels and cleaning supplies. If I zoom out of my daydreaming and look inside my tiny home, I only see my small family of four, huddled cozily in a warm room. I watch them from my laptop, only a mere six feet away. From my open window, the smell of fresh gardenia makes its way through our home. I recall the feel of rich earth between our fingertips as my sons and I buried the fragrant plant. From this window, I see the same man comfortably walking his dog, a nice man.
“Mama, come play with us,” my children plead in unison. I smirk and shut my laptop, leaving this article on “tiny living”, unfinished. I join them on the modern, gray floors as my Alexa device plays a worship tune in the background. Somehow my life’s purposes are being realigned since going tiny, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
