The Queen's Rambles

I love our neighborhood. Love, love, love. I may wish for a bigger house instead of our little townhouse, but we couldn’t have gotten a better neighborhood. Well, I suppose we could have if you have different priorities than us, but I love what we have here.

We live in a dead end street that is lined with several blocks of townhouses. There’s a tiny playground in the middle, then there’s a big loop at the end with a block of grass and parking lot. There’s a big grassy hill at the end, backing up to the Department of Energy. We have a lot of green space compared to most townhome communities around here.

But that’s not the part to love. I love the people! Every night there are a billion kids of all ages outside playing. The kids split into little groups depending on age and fun preference, but it’s very fluid and they mostly get along. There’s a lot of drama from the tweeny group, but that’s to be expected and they just make me laugh.

We even have groups of teenagers hanging outside. They aren’t in zoning in front of the TV or video games. They’re out chatting and playing basketball. As far as I can tell they are all nice kids. They are generally polite and try not to curse in front of the little kids. They even let the younger kids join in their games. Last night they tried to teach Erik how to ride a skateboard.

Of course we do have a few households that are not so great. Section 8 druggies live across the street from the little playground. They let their kids run wild with no supervision, but even those kids are fairly polite, probably because the rest of the adults don’t stand for them being total hooligans. I guess every neighborhood has to have the resident baddies.

Recently we had a very large Hispanic family move in. Their children have been the most wonderful addition to our little community! They have upper elementary aged boys who are born leaders. They get the little kids lined up and playing organized games every evening. I don’t know how they do it, but they get all the kids to listen and play these intricate games. I am thinking of hiring them to come play with Erik in a mother’s helper capacity after Erik is done with his camps.

We’ve only lived here a year and I have been in at least seven of our neighbors’ houses. I lived in my natal home for 18 years and have been in maybe three of our neighbors’ houses. There’s always people out in the yards, watching the kids, chatting and doing yard work. It’s all very friendly.

Yesterday I was totally bored of playing with Erik and thought “he really needs a kid to play with.” I had him go knock on a neighbor’s door and we ended up having a great afternoon with two sleepy babies (born five days apart), two preschoolers and two tired mommies. It was so nice to be able to talk to an adult while the kids kept each other company.