My husband will be getting his Ph.D. this spring and our family will be facing an out-of-state move. In business school, it was always emphasized that obtaining buy-in from employees was a critical factor in implementing any major changes. With this in mind, I’ve encouraged the children to be as involved in the relocation process as possible. As my husband interviews, we look up his location on the map, talk about what it would be like to live in each place, and sometimes even look at real estate online together.
So when Puppy announced a couple of months ago that she only had one request about whatever house we ended up living in, I was eager to hear her thoughts. (A blue bedroom? A bunk bed? A play house in the back yard?)
But no.
With a serious look on her face she said, “I just really, really want to make sure we buy a house with no electricity.”
This shouldn’t have come as a surprise since the girl is obsessed with Little House on the Prairie and spends every free minute pretending she is Laura living in the “olden days,” but it definitely caught me off guard.
I started explaining all the reasons why it wouldn’t be practical to buy a house with no electricity, but her mind was made up. Obviously I couldn’t agree to her demand, so we ended up comprimising: we’d occassionally turn the electricity off.
I thought that was the end of the feedback I’d receive about the move, but last week Kitten made a request of her own. Again, I was eager to hear her thoughts. I expected she’d ask for a purple and pink bedroom (her favorite colors), a loft bed, or even a kitten. Instead, her request stunned me.
“Mom,” she said. “When we move I really, really think we should buy a house with a big swimming pool in the living room. And it should turn into a wave pool. And on the other side of it, we should have a hot tub.”
Too stunned to argue, all I could think at the time was that obtaining buy-in for this move just might be harder than I expected.
