A Popped Bubble

So ... moving to Utah has been fabulous for me.

I'm by family; I don't feel like I'm completely solo in bringing up these sweet babies of mine.

I get seasons back.  I have missed the crispness of fall and the thrill of blooming trees ... it's been years.

I get to help Mark build something that is just ours.  It's a neat feeling to create a small business that can support your growing family.  Decorating, cleaning, and managing his online presence have been fun, empowering ways for me to help my husband.

And my apartment complex is quite scenic.

So, while Mark has been experiencing insomnia over the stress of owning a business, and depression triggered by freezing cold winters and snow plastered to his car, I have been enjoying my seasons, helping out at the office when it's convenient, and soaking up the beautiful scenery of our tiny apartment with the kids.

Until ...

I started getting notices on my door; reminders that I had signed in my move-in contract that I would "keep my children from playing unnecessarily in the entryways, sidewalks, etc.  No child under the age of 14 should be allowed outside without parent supervision, and all must stay at least 5 feet away from ponds and streams at all times."  Well .... good grief, what does "unnecessarily play" even mean?  I don't send my little kids outside by themselves, so that's not a problem.  And five feet away?  Please.  Who measures.

So I ignored these.

THEN one day early in my pregnancy (when I couldn't make it through the day without a nap), Mark came home for lunch, as he occasionally does.  I fell asleep on the couch, and he left not too long after.  I couldn't have been asleep for more than ten minutes, when I sat up quickly.  The door was wide open!  Mark always locks it, what was going on?  I jumped up.  Mac was sitting in his room playing, but Belle was nowhere to be seen.

I stepped outside ... no Belle.

I checked the giant sand volleyball pit.  No Belle.

So I raced over to an area on the other side of the office, where the ducks usually hang out and Belle likes to walk to.

And there, around that corner, came Belle.  She was escorted by two fix-it guys that work for the complex, and she was scowling as hard as I've ever seen here.  I ran up to them and started to say, "Thank you so much, we forgot to lock the d--"

But he cut me off with, "You have got to be more careful.  This is the third time it's happened, and if it happens again, we're calling the police."

My jaw hung open.  Third time?  Call the police?  What in the world was he talking about?  Flustered and angry, I swooped her up and marched back to my apartment.  After giving Belle a piece of my scared-mama mind, I called the office and asked for more info.  What did he mean, third time?  She'd never gotten outside without me before.

Well, the office had some stories for me.  Every single one I knew, because I was there.  A man saw Belle walking along in the grass.  She wasn't in the water, but she was fairly close.  I was sitting on a bench watching her.  "Little girl, where is your mother?" he said.  "I'm here," I had replied, and he walked away.  Another time, she was playing in the dirt while I was bringing groceries in.  As I was walking out of the house to get yet another load from the car, a woman came around the corner, and ran to pick up Belle.  "I'm right here," I said, and she set her down.

Apparently those incidents were not acceptable, and were the reasons for my notices.

I explained that I never send her out to play on her own; but I DO take her outside to let her run around!  We are stuck in that tiny apartment all day, and it's beautiful outside; shouldn't kids get to run and play and dig in the sand?

I guess not if they don't have a leash on them.

Because, even after this phone conversation, I received a notice from a lawyer's office on my door saying that I had refused to comply with my contract, and this was my final warning.  If I did not do so now, I would be evicted and required to pay fines.

WHAT.

I was so mad.  SO mad.

I felt trapped.  I felt unwelcome.  I felt like every window had a neighbor watching out of it, calculating how far Belle could walk away from me before they decided to call the office.

So I told Mark I needed a break, and I took the kids to my mom's.

Happy-Utah-Bubble, popped.  Then tossed in the oven and burned.  Then buried.

And that my friends, is what helped us decide it was time to buy our own house, where we had nobody to answer to except the people on our street, who, we would be sure, would have plenty of kids of their own.  It will be a place with parents our age, with kids the same ages as ours, and together we would watch out for them all while they played in the dirt and climbed trees and got into trouble.  Surely a place like that exists in Salt Lake City.

I mean, this is still Utah, isn't it?