On a pretty regular basis we get asked questions like, “How do the kids like the boat?” or “Did your kids adjust pretty well to living in such a small space?” The questions aren’t meant to be funny, and I’m sure they are just worded wrong, but they make us laugh nonetheless. Our kids’ home has always been the boat. They don’t know anything else; they like it because it is where they live, and they haven’t adjusted because there is nothing to adjust from. We stay in condos and visit family, which the kids love, but when we get back to the boat they are both happy. They aren’t moping around because their room is small.

We were just contacted by another tiny living blog (we’ve been featured in a few articles in the past) which is about the only time we really even think about the fact that our home is so stinking tiny. The fact that people, not just us, live for years and years in such small spaces is kind of amazing actually; that we do it without a second thought is doubly so.

When we announced that we were having a second baby we got lots of e-mails about how we were going to have to buy a bigger boat. While the senders were obviously joking, I think that that is sort of the mentality nowadays. But with us it was just a question of how we would rearrange what we already had to accommodate him. Ali and I live this way now with almost no thought given to it. Living small is just sort of what we do now.

That’s not to say we’re perfect. We still buy things that we don’t really need. We motor sometimes when we could raise a sail. We sprawl out and take up thousands of square feet when grandparents’ homes present themselves to us. And somehow we generate a bag of garbage a day.

Anyway, not sure what the point of that was. We just got that e-mail and it got me thinking.

I finished up the water pump install today. I’m psyched about the whole thing. It took me like six months to get around to tackling it, but in the end it was only a three hour job. The new pump is much smaller, doesn’t have hot oil pulsing through it, and gives me much better access to the impeller when replacing. Mostly I’m excited by the prospect of no more water and oil leaking into my bilge (well except for all the water that gets in there from both the prop and rudder shafts).

My Lowe. This boy has been testing me lately. The past week or two when he doesn’t get what he wants he just starts screaming/crying and he won’t stop. Won’t stop until Ali picks him up off the floor anyway. The boy does love his mama. But the great thing about Lowe is his smile. In a second he can make up for any of his nonsense with just one crack of his smile.

Lately he’s been copying Ouest a lot. Whatever she does he does too. She puts her arm out the bus window, he puts his out. She climbs up on a table, he climbs up right behind her. And he looks right at us and smiles proudly. He loves to be told, “Just like Ouest,” whenever he does something new. Today he ate apples with peanut butter, and when we told him it was just like Ouest he beamed at his accomplishment. Funny how these simple little things can bring so much happiness to all of us.