A village

I keep hearing the phrase "it takes a village..." in various contexts. It seems that most people believe this, but don't see it in action. I am feeling very grateful today for my own little "village," and the pieces of that notion that still exist - at least, they exist in my little world.

For one thing, I love my neighborhood. You've seen my post about saying "night-night" to all of our neighbors through the windows before bedtime. Vi truly knows the names of all of our neighbors, and is thrilled to see each of them whenever we can. She literally lunges from my arms or starts running across the yard when any of our neighbors appears - she simply can't wait to say "Hi-looo!" to them.

To one side of us lives a family that has been in the neighborhood since it was built in 1942. T's father was the original owner, and she grew up in that house. She now lives there with her husband and teenage son; their daughter is away at college. They have a grand porch on the front of the house, with stairs! and rocking chairs! and peek-a-boo railings! and a sign that says, "come sit on our porch." The best thing? THEY MEAN IT. Come 5 o'clock on spring and summer evenings, everyone is on that porch. Papou mentioned to me today that we now live in a "nod & wave" society, rather than an "it takes a village" society, and that one of the indicators is that people have private porches on the back of their house, whereas the porch used to be a social setting on the front side. That was the first time I acknowledged this little blessing in my life.

Across the street are three families, all with little kiddos. There's a boy and girl (4 and 2) in one house, D. (13 months) across the street, and two boys to the right (6 and almost 2). Vi and D. are in day care together, and are entering a developmental stage where their 6 months age gap isn't so significant anymore. In the evening and on weekends, we're out front in the yard, drawing on the sidewalk, riding in D.'s little red wagon, playing peek-a-boo on T's porch...and getting lots of smiles and giggles out of our little ones. In a pinch, we have sitters at the ready - sitters that make it feel more like a play date.

Just this morning, we were dropping the kids off at "school," and Dylan's dad had to leave...before D. was ready for him to. D. was just as happy to hang with me for a few minutes while he slipped out the door unnoticed. I was able to transition the two of them to a teacher and slip away with some kisses and funny faces through the window. The whole drop-off process was...smooth.

Why? Because we are lucky enough to have a few fragments of village-living in my 'hood. It's so much easier with extra hands.