CHANGING HOMES WITH ASPERGER'S

I'm sure many people have gone through this before us.  Most people will change homes at some point in their lives, but for us, it does cause some anxiety.  Our home has become a little too small for all of us, so we are considering a change of location.  In this post, I'll discuss our concerns with moving to a new home, while having a child with Asperger's.

My wife Shannon and I moved into our first home back in July 2001.  We bought our home at a very young age and as such, we were mostly focused on the location.  Our home is within blocks of everything we need.  Family, schools, doctors and work are very close by.  We knew eventually we'd have children and if we needed a new or bigger home, we'd just move.  It seemed like a simple task back then, but now that we have a young child with Asperger's, what once seemed simple now feels a little more difficult.

We as a family have some tough choices to make.  Do we sell this house and buy a bigger one in our neighbourhood?  Or, do we move into my mom's house and rebuild a new house in our existing lot?

Here are our perceived pros and cons associated with each.

BUYING A NEW HOME

Pros - It may be cheaper than rebuilding, it would be less stressful, as building a new home will take much more time and money, buying a new home would only involve 1 move.

Cons - What condition will the home be in?  Will it be big enough?  Can we even find a home in the same neighbourhood?

REBUILDING A HOME

Pros - We can stay in the same spot in our neighbourhood (we live on the best corner and block), our house will have everything we need as we go through the building process, the house would be in mint condition and hopefully have no issues.

Cons - Rebuilding would be very stressful as all decisions must be made by us, we would need a place to stay for approximately 1 year, this would technically involve 2 moves.

If we did decide to rebuild, we would most likely have to move in with my mother.  This way Jacob wouldn't feel as displaced, hopefully.  He could go to the same school and still enjoy the same activities associated with our neighbourhood.  But on the other hand moving in with my mom would have some negatives too.  There isn't really a lot of room for us and our stuff.  We'd have to rent a storage unit to store our house full of belongings.  Also, my mother is a chain smoker.  Which, as I've mentioned in a previous post, would cause serious issues with Jacob's asthma.  And honestly, who after being on their own for over 10 years wants to move back in with a parent? 

So, we have also considered buying a smaller house and moving in there.  Then, we could most likely keep our house and rent it out and get some extra income.  But then we'd be landlords and we'd have to face all the responsibilities and stress of that.  Also, with our money tied up in 2 homes, I'm not sure if we could afford to renovate any new home we bought.  We don't want to be house poor.

In an ideal world, all options would be available in the upcoming Spring season.  But what if the right house doesn't become available?  We have decided that for Jacob's sake that leaving our neighbourhood is out of the question.  We finally have his schooling on track, so moving to a new school district would mean starting the process all over again.  I don't know if we could handle weekly school meeting again.  Also, my mom and my brother and his family live within a 3 block area.  Shannon's family is only about a 10 minute walk away.  We don't even have a car, believe it or not.  How would we see our families if we moved 30 minutes away?  Besides that , Jacob does get extremely carsick.  I couldn't imagine him bringing up every day before school. 

Oh what to do?  We are already stressed a little and we haven't even got to the new year yet.  Our main concern is to not affect Jacob too negatively, after all, this is the only place he's ever called home.  We'd hate to be happy in a new home and have Jacob hate it.  That would totally defeat the purpose of moving.  We want to make sure everyone is happy if we can.  If anyone out there has been through this before, we'd love to have your insight or tips.  Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment.