Tiny Spaces through the Eyes of My Child

My cousin and her husband recently bought a used travel trailer to take camping. It's not a big camper, but it is set up in a way that utilizes the available space well. It has twin bunks at the back next to a very roomy bathroom, a spacious refrigerator for an RV, and a dinette. At the front of the trailer is a short queen bed.

It is a very nice camper, and I can see why they chose it. It was fun to open all the doors and see just how the designers organized the limited space.

My three-year-old was absolutely smitten. She didn't want to leave. The new trailer may as well have been her own personal play place.

Watching her happily play in such small quarters intrigued me.

I often wonder what Sunshine will think of our house as she gets older. Will she feel like she has missed out on growing up in a "normal" house? Will she feel confined? She is only just now starting to grasp the fact that our home is smaller than most people's houses. She states it as a fact with no value judgment. How long will it be until she starts to have an opinion about house sizes? And when she does, what will she say?

I honestly don't know the answers to these questions.

I do know this, though. I know that she gravitates to the small spaces in her world: the play tent, the half-height loft, the space under her cousin's loft bed, the little nooks in tree trunks, and, yes, the new little trailer sitting outside her cousins' spacious house. These are the places that she loves to be.

She is happy in her little world right now, and that's enough for today.