Community

I walked home from work as I do every Friday, but this evening as I got to my block I saw that my neighbors were out on the porch with their brand new, 2-day old baby. Woo hoo! So I had to stop and hold that gorgeous baby, and a couple of other neighbors were there too, so we chatted and talked about babies and induction and being tired.

I do think it would be nice to have a couple more kids. Four kids would be a nice number. Four is so...friendly. It's a big old group of kids. A gaggle of kids. Four kids would make for lively Christmases. Four would be so nice!

My neighbors keep trying to convince me that it would be a good idea to have another baby but we're not going there. We can't do it, for a lot of reasons, so my two is enough. Plus, while the idea of four kids sounds pretty nice, the idea of even one more baby does not sound all that nice. Although, come to think of it, having just one baby seems like it would be kind of sweet, but...no. No more children for us.

As I sat talking with the neighbors I thought, I need to get home, Jake is going to wonder where I am. But then Milo came running out of my neighbor's house, and then followed Nora and Jake. Turns out they were there too, playing with their friend Millie, who is their age. Milo had Millie's shopping cart and he suggested that the new baby would like to perhaps take a ride in the cart. "And that's why 2-year olds don't babysit," mentioned our neighbor. "I'm sure in about a year he's going to love riding in that cart," remarked his mother. Milo grinned and hopped down the steps to the yard.

Since we can't have a big old gaggle of kids sometimes I wish Milo and Nora had cousins in the same town (they're all the way across the country), or something, something to make it more of a big family feeling.

But we do have a big extended family feeling in the neighborhood, and that is a really, really nice thing to have. They'll take each other's kids after school, the kids wander into one another's houses, they share toys and clothes. I know which kids belong to which parents but if you just wandered into our neighborhood it would be very hard to tell because at any given time any one parent is likely to have his or her kids plus any number of extras. This is community, and it's definitely something I felt shut out of before we had children, but now it has opened up.

Milo and Nora love playing with Millie, so she can drop by any time when her parents need a break and some extra time with their newborn. At this stage, one extra doesn't really make a difference. So yes, it'll just be our two, but at least we live on a block with many, many more to pop in any time of the day.