For your kids, this is enough.

We had one nice day last week, and on that one nice day, Phoebe got the crazy notion that we should take a walk. It felt vulnerable and unnatural – the idea of wandering aimlessly outdoors when our bodies and minds had gotten used to winter imprisonment.

I dusted off the stroller. Grace, family altruist, packed a tote bag with water bottles and snacks, and we set out, bumping along sidewalks we hadn’t seen for months.

Our neighborhood, which has officially been Our Neighborhood for a year now, features an endearingly eclectic mix of homes. Sturdy brick beauties with large porches. A few stone foxes that feel more Kansas City than St. Louis. Sought-after 40 Thieves homes built from materials leftover from the 1904 World’s Fair. Some pink-hued stuccos with terracotta roofs. One or two ultra-modern new builds. An imposing McMansion, just to keep things interesting. And a smattering of quaint postwar brick bungalows, like ours, to fill in the spaces.

I love it. That lack of uniformity is a huge part of what drew me to this area – that, the school district, and the close proximity to a convenience store known as The Brodega. It’s exactly what you’d think a Brodega would be. IPAs, APAs and Cardinals spring training on the TV.

As we walked, we looked at the velvet buds on the corner magnolia tree. We watched families on a preschool playground, reuniting after winter weeks apart, and we took in the houses. An elegant brick number caught my eye – solid and stately, with clay tiles, the original wooden stairs and pretty dark green trim. Its three-car garage was visible from the sidewalk.

“I really like that house,” I told Emilia, who had slowed down from running corner to corner and was now walking beside me.

“Do you like it more than our house?” She asked. And in that moment, I forgot that I was talking to my clever, idealistic 8-year-old and not a peer.

“Oh my gosh, yes,” I responded, my voice tinged with “duh.” Because who in their right mind would want our house when you could have THIS house?

Emilia would.

“Really?” she asked. It was a surprised “Really?” A disappointed “Really?” She was expecting a different answer.

I tried to backpedal from my enthusiastic betrayal of our home.

“I mean, I really like our house too. This one just seems cool.”

From there, the subject changed and we continued onward, but a little bit of my brain stayed back on that square of sidewalk, weighed down by guilt. Distracted by my discontent.

When I think of our house, I think of the overgrown yard, the outdated kitchen and the first-floor bathroom that looks like a DIYer's bad acid trip. I think of the Great Mouse Invasion of 2019 and the basement that flooded when George was three days old. I think of the honeycomb of small rooms that drives Matt crazy, and I think of the cost-prohibitive renovations that may be years in the making.

Emilia just sees home. She thinks of her room – HER room! – adorned with her artwork, notes from friends and her intricate clay creations. She thinks of movie nights in the basement, Christmas in the living room, dinners around the dining room table, and summer evenings in the backyard. She smells burnt oven pizzas on Thursday nights and French toast on Saturday mornings. She feels happy. She feels good. Because home is good. And our house is enough.

As an adult human, I am programmed to be unsettled. I am designed to be distracted by what could be better. The jittery inclination that life always needs an upgrade is pervasive and kind of toxic, and if I’m not careful, it can take over everything – my choices, my circumstances, my professional life, my parenting could be better. Should be better.

I’d be a better mom if we could get her signed up for this or that, if we ate this instead of that, wore this instead of that, if we could figure out a way to get to Disney World, if we could just…

Naturally, I assume that we’re all operating this way. That my kids are also preoccupied by what could be and what is not enough. But here’s the thing – they’re not.

To my kids, and to your kids, this life is good. When they’re loved and cared for, they aren’t distracted by what’s greener because they’re too busy enjoying the grass under their feet. Because in that grass, there’s a bunch of tiny plastic crap they love to play with. Next to them is a sibling they mostly adore. Behind them is a parent who wants the best for them more than they want anything else in the world.

That’s more than enough.

On our next walk, if I find myself remarking on a particularly pretty house, and if one of my particularly astute kids asks where it ranks, I will tell her that this house is great, but ours is better. Because she lives there, and we live there. And, despite the noise complaints I’ve taken up with the manager, there’s never been a better venue for movie nights.

Then, as she runs on to the next corner, I’ll shout like an insane person to watch out for driveways, and I’ll try my hardest to remember, repeat and really believe how ridiculously fortunate we are.