The Neighbors

One of the reasons I was excited to move into this neighborhood is that nearly every family has young children. My parents are one of the few exceptions, along with our neighbors to the west. They are a young couple with no kids yet. But our neighbors to the east have two boys, ages 6 (?) and 3. Just older than TJ and Sam. From watching the boys playing in their yard, I hadn't been too excited to pair them up with my kids. For one thing, no one ever seems to be watching them. If my boys are outside, Bill is out there with them. Occasionally, I will let them play outside while I am cooking, but they have to stay in my line of vision. I can't imagine letting my 3-year-old wander the neighborhood. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway, on Wednesday, my boys suddenly connected with theirs. The next thing I knew, they were in our basement playing. I let it go, because TJ was so excited to have friends over, and because things seemed relatively calm. The next day, they showed up as soon as I got home from work. Bill let them in to play while I made dinner (gee, thanks). They seemed really anxious to play with TJ's Thomas toys. About 15 minutes later, their mom showed up, expressing concern over the younger one. Apparently, he had NOTHING on under his shorts and he isn't potty trained. Ummm..remove him from my house please! She invited TJ over to play at their house after dinner, which I appreciated, and let him go over there for about 45 minutes.

Well, yesterday was a different story. The boys came over twice during nap time, ringing the doorbell repeatedly both times. In addition to that, every time I opened the door, the older boy would push it open wide and say, "I came here to play". No "may we come in" or "can TJ come play", it's "I came here to play". AND his obnoxious chocolate lab burst through my door 3 times now. I do not want that dog in our house! It's bad enough she gets in my garage and eats the boys' frisbees and steals our tennis balls. They have invisible fence but never bother to turn it on.

Still, this was all stuff I could deal with. It gets worse. After nap and snack, I sent the boys outside to play. Bill was outside painting trim and said he'd keep an eye on them. Pretty soon, the neighbor boys are over. They're in the backyard throwing large clumps of dirt into our kiddie pool. Bill tells them to stop. Soon, I hear thud, thud, thud. They are now throwing large clumps of dirt onto the sandbox cover (TJ is helping). I alert Bill who tells them to stop and find something else to do. Awhile later, I'm in the kitchen starting dinner and I see one of the boys has the hose on and is shooting water into the side yard. I get Bill who turns off the water and firmly tells them to find something else to play with (I wanted him to send them home, he wanted to give them one more chance). The final straw happened when I was making the salad. I look out the window to see the older boy chasing TJ and throwing mud at him and his toy lawn mower. Mud? Where's mud coming from? It dawns on me that Bill had the sprinklers running on his freshly planted grass over to the side of the house. I run outside, kitchen knife still in hand, and discover both of the neighbor boys up to their ankles in mud. Somewhere around 50 square feet of freshly planted lawn is now a muddy, destroyed mess! (Important note: neither TJ or Sam had any mud on them at all, but they also did not have the sense to get a parent to help stop the destruction). I started yelling, "What are you doing? There's grass trying to grow! Get off that mud this instant!" I realized I'm probably a scary sight, yelling and waving my kitchen knife, so I go and get Bill who completely flips out (those of you who know Bill know how rare this is). The boys slink home and we haven't seen them since. Bill spent quite awhile cleaning mud off of the driveway and re-planting his grass last night. I took the boys to my mom's to give him a few hours' peace and quiet.

So what do I do? I don't want a bad relationship with the neighbors, but neither will I tolerate the behavior I've been observing. I certainly don't want TJ to start copying them...he's a handful as it is! He's just so anxious to have friends he isn't willing to speak up when they misbehave. Thank goodness for Chad, who lives right behind us. Nice boy, neat family. If only they weren't on a camping trip....

I need an Excedrin.