"Penny and I bought a house. We found out yesterday that they accepted our offer. It will take a few weeks to finish the paperwork and get the keys, but we bought a house!" Leonard shared during lunch about a month after the news of Amy's pregnancy was shared with the rest of the group.
Raj was the first one to reply. "How exciting! Tell us everything. Where is it? How many bedrooms? What's going to happen with your apartment?"
"I guess the landlord will just rent our apartment to someone else?" shrugged Leonard before moving on to his other questions. "It's a four-bedroom, about halfway our place and Howard's house. We didn't want to move too far from work and everyone. We love the area, but there's no way we'd be able to raise an infant in our apartment. There are times it seems too small for just Penny and I; I can't imagine what it'd be like with all the baby stuff." Leonard pulled his phone out of his pocket and passed it to his friends. "Here's the online listing so you can see what it looks like."
Flipping through the pictures on Leonard's phone, Howard remarked, "I've noticed the for sale sign in front of this place and was curious if the inside was as nice as the outside. It doesn't look like you'll need to do any work on it, except maybe painting cuz those colors are a little much."
Sheldon pushed the food around on his plate, not saying anything until Howard passed him Leonard's phone to see the pictures. "This is a big house. Do you and Penny need four bedrooms? It's not like she wants to have more kids."
"Most houses in this area are at least four bedrooms. We decided to go with a four-bedroom so we can use one as an office slash man cave and the other as a guest room. Also, Penny didn't want to have one kid, so I'm not going to say more kids are out of the picture," joked Leonard. "Have you and Amy talked about what you're doing once she has the baby? You haven't said much about if you're doing anything to get ready for the baby, which is somewhat surprising, considering how prepared you like to be for everything."
Quiet for a moment, Sheldon quickly stood from the table, "I need to see Amy. I'll talk to you all later."
"Bets on them looking at houses this weekend?" Howard half-joked, half-asked seriously.
"Oh, Amy, there you are," Sheldon sounded exasperated when he found her walking towards her lab. "I checked your lab, but you weren't there and I wasn't sure where to look for you."
"I needed to get out of the lab for a little while, stretch my legs, so I went for a walk," she explained while running her hand over her recently starting to show baby bump. "Is everything okay? What's going on? You don't usually see me during the day."
Sheldon followed her back into her lab before sharing why he was looking for her in the middle of the day. "I think we should buy a house. We only have two bedrooms. Max will be twelve by the time the baby is born. He's starting to want more space and independence, we can't ask him to share his room with a newborn."
Smirking, Amy guessed, "You talked to Leonard, didn't you? Penny told me this morning about their house."
"You've been telling me about all the things we need to do before September, but you never mentioned we would need more room. We've still got the money from winning the Nobel, so we don't have to worry about coming up with a down payment. We'll be able to make a decent down payment, so it's possible our mortgage payment could be cheaper than the rent for the apartment."
"Okay. We'll talk more about this at home. We also need to include Max in this process. He goes to all the open houses with us. I want his input. We get the final say, of course, but he's old enough to be able to say what he likes or doesn't like."
Max was already home from school by the time Sheldon and Amy returned to the apartment after work. He'd been starting to be home alone for less than an hour after school, rather than wait at school for Sheldon and Amy to pick him up when they were done with work. He usually found a snack and started on his homework while waiting for his parents to get home. "Did you hear Penny and Leonard are moving?" He asked, looking up from his homework when he heard the door open.
"Yes, we heard. Leonard showed me pictures of the house during lunch. It's really nice. How's your homework going?" Sheldon tried changing the topic.
"I'm almost done. I should have it finished before dinner so I can go to the comic book store tonight."
Amy glanced at Sheldon and gave him a look that he easily understood. "Sounds good. Let us know when you're finished. Your mom and I want to talk to you about something. It's not bad and you're not in trouble, so no need to worry."
Forty minutes later, Max had finished his homework and joined his parents at the kitchen island. Sheldon frequently sat there, watching Amy prepare dinner to give Max space while he worked on his homework. "What do you want to talk about? You aren't having twins, are you?"
"Nope," Amy smiled as she turned around from the stove. "Just one baby in here, but it is kind of about the baby. With Leonard and Penny getting a house and moving, Sheldon and I realized this apartment won't be big enough for all of us once the baby is born. We didn't ask your opinion before we decided to have a baby, but we are asking your opinion about moving. We're thinking about buying a house. Just something with more than two bedrooms so you don't have to share a room with the baby."
"Okay, I guess," Max shrugged his shoulders. "Although, I wouldn't mind sharing a room with the baby. It might be fun to share a room."
Sheldon shook his head, "You only say that because you've never had to share a room with anyone. I shared my room with Missy until we were fourteen. Even then, I only got my own room because Georgie moved out. If he hadn't moved out, I'd probably have been stuck sharing a room with Missy until I moved here when I was sixteen. You'll be twelve and starting seventh grade when the baby is born. You might not right now, but you'll want your own space to get away from the baby, especially as he or she starts to get older and can get into things."
"Sheldon and I will decide what houses we look at, but we want you to come with us and tell us if there's anything you don't like about them," explained Amy. "We're going to look for houses in this area, so you won't have to change schools or anything."
"When do we start looking at houses?" The boy questioned.
Amy turned back to the stove while answering, "I'll look online to see what's available. Most open houses are on weekends, so we can start looking on Saturday."
