What we thought we wanted, but bad timing

The six ground floor units of our apartment building have some fenced in open space in front of the units, enough space for patio furniture and a grill, and little gardens in the back - they're postage stamp sized but they exist, and in the summer they get quite a bit of afternoon sun. And from the units with gardens the kids can walk directly to the play area in the back, whereas Small Boy and I have to go downstairs and out the back door, which is kept locked. This means that even when he's three and would be old enough to go out back and play by himself, he won't be able to get out there or come home by himself. But the kids who live in the garden apartments go back and forth to the play area all the time, even the three-year olds. By the time R and I found this building and looked at apartments - and there were only three units still available when we looked at them - all the garden units had long since been rented.

I have garden apartment envy.

R contacted our rental company several months ago and asked them to let us know when any of the families in the garden apartments were moving so that we could consider switching to one of those units. With Small Boy it would really be nice having the outdoor space but especially access to the play area that didn't involve me all the time. Well. Somebody is moving out of one of the garden apartments in December. Here's the problem. It's one room less than we have now - 4.5 rooms instead of 5.5 rooms - and each of the 4.5 rooms is a bit smaller than what we have. We'd not only lose a room but each remaining room would have less square footage. (Their kitchen is better, though.) If we knew it would just be the three of us, we could make it work - we have more space here than we need, strictly speaking. But if we become four - well, it wouldn't work for us. And of course we do not know if we will be three or four. Now of all times we really, really don't know what's going to happen.

And so we have to pass on the garden apartment, and hope that once we know what our family will look like another option becomes available.

As my father would say, phooey!