[blparent] Baby on the Way! Now, Where to Live?

[Star Gazer]

				If you love where you are, then stay there. 
What's right for you will become clear as the path progresses. 
I've found it easier to hire drivers because you won't want to walk with
your baby or toddler in nasty weather. You'll be even less likely to do it
when the child or you is sick. 
More space sounds great, but how the space is laid out is crutial. You want
space that you can use and be comfortable in.  For example, we used to live
in a place with a good sized basement. The problem, the hvac system was
terrible and only heated the upstairs. This meant that we couldn't
comfortably use the basement. We did look into extending the hvac system but
that would have meant giving up a closet. I mean that literally. We nearly
put in a pellet stove when we decided to move for that as well as other
issues. The lack of heat in the basement meant nobody wanted to watch tv
down there. It meant nobody wanted to play down there. It meant nobody
wanted to go sit and read a book down there. It meant that that a room that
could have served as a nice office didn't. My husband and I were talking
about this today and he had to concede that the house before the one with no
heat in the basement while being much smaller was a better house. 
Schools deffinately matter. You are years away from that, and since you
rent, you can move anytime you'd like. 
Bottom line, if you are happy where you are, stay there. If it starts to
become unhappy you'll know and can adjust. Many many people do this because
you can't envision what a child looks like in terms of lifestyle
architecture.
   



-----Original Message-----
From: blparent [mailto:blparent-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Allison via
blparent
Sent: Thursday, July 23, 2015 7:31 PM
To: 'Blind Parents Mailing List' <blparent at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Allison <allison82 at cox.net>
Subject: [blparent] Baby on the Way! Now, Where to Live?

		Hi Everyone,

First a quick intro since, while I've been reading this list for a while, I
haven't posted much yet. I did write a couple of times about ovulation kits
and pregnancy tests a while back. I'm happy to say that our attempts with
ovulation kits were a success, and my fiance and I are expecting our first
child this January! We're really excited!

My fiance, Darrell,  and I are both blind and currently live in the Phoenix
area. We have an apartment with a lease that will be up in September, and
we're trying to decide where we want to live next. What we're finding so far
is that, most of the houses that we can afford, are further from public
transportation than we're used to. We love our current location, but we are
looking for more space for when baby arrives. We went house-hunting last
weekend, found one house that had a lot of space, a yard, was in our price
range, and It was near one bus stop... sorta. We almost made an offer, but
Darrell and I came to a hard realization. We're not sure we're quite ready
to give up our urban lifestyle in order to become suburban home-owners just
yet. We're willing to do it if it turns out best for raising a family, yet
we're not sure if that's really necessary.

So I'm coming to this list to learn from your collective experience as blind
parents. What did you find was and was not really important when choosing a
place to live with very young children? As a first time parent, I realize
that I don't know what I'll need in terms of location. It's entirely
possible that, the things I think are important in a location, aren't at all
necessary, and there may be other truly important considerations that
haven't even crossed my mind yet. So here are some questions that I'd like
to bounce off of you guys...

When you had babies or small children, did you find that you rode buses or
light rails often? Was it more convenient to take cabs, paratransit, or
hired drivers over other transit options? What is too long of a walk with a
small child? Is a back yard a must, or is it more important to live near a
park/playground? How helpful is it to be in walking or bus distance of
restaurants, stores, or doctor offices? Will climbing stairs while juggling
a cane, baby, and accessories eventually make us crazy? What of schools?
Should I be factoring in proximity to schools if our baby isn't even born
yet? What other factors am I not considering but are important?

Knowing others' experiences will likely be helpful to us when deciding what
location may work best for our family. Any feedback or suggestions from you
all are appreciated!

Thanks,
	Allison, Darrell, and Baby





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