Thinking of The Kids-To-Be

This weekend a couple of different things related to our future children came up.

I love it when Dylan talks about our future kids :) It always gets me so excited and anxious!

While discussing our financial future, we had a discussion about savings versus spending, and the topic of vacations came up. We both definitely feel it is important to go on vacations. In the book I am reading, a character comments on how her family never went on vacation until she was 15, and by then it was too late and she was a teenager who would rather be at home with her friends and not stuck with her parents for a week. Dylan and I talked about how we want to mix up where we go. Camping vacations, road trip vacations, resort vacations, beaches, mountains, in the U.S., out of the U.S. We definitely want to wait until our youngest is at least 5, closer to 6 years old, so then he/she will be able to remember everything better. My family's first vacation was to Disneyland and California; Goosie was 4 and my parents have said she was a little too young for the trip. We also decided once our youngest reaches at least 16, probably 18, we will go to Europe. We think it is important to have a chance to go abroad to a place with such history. Dylan went to Rome when he was 15 and he felt profoundly changed after being there.

Another thing that came up regarding our kids-to-be is religion. This is a discussion Dylan and I have definitely had before, but this book I am reading brought it to light again. We have always wanted to be open minded about any religious affiliations our kids want to have. With this book though, the mom is especially anti-religious, and her daughter decides she wants to go to church.  I am pretty much in the same boat as the mom. Dylan said he would go with our kids to whatever church, synagogue, mosque, etc. they wanted to go to. It's not that I am not open minded, and I think a lot of it was the context of the book, but as much as I am fine with my kids doing what they want religiously, I don't think it is something I should have to be personally involved in. Except to make sure it's not some actual cult. I feel it is my choice to not be religious as much as it would by my kids' choice to be religious. As long they don't try to convert me, I think we'll be good.

The last thing that came for the future of our children, is the house. We obviously are buying a house with our future kids in mind. (A detailed house blog coming soon :) ) We picked this house so it has a big yard, already with a play house and play set in the yard. The kids bedrooms have a ton of storage and shelves (the whole house does). There's a great place to put games in the cabinet in the hallway upstairs. The kids bathroom has fish tiles in in and we registered for a fish shower curtain for their bathroom. The basement would partially be a playroom for them.

A lot of future thoughts going on these last couple days! And Dylan hasn't even been jumpy or put-off by it :)