Naughty Neighbor

One of the blessings, I think, of living in Las Vegas is we don't have neighborhood children knocking on our door 24/7 to see if my kids can play. When we were gone to France the babysitter asked about our policy as to our kids at others' houses or vice versa. "Uh," I explained, "this isn't Utah. Kids don't just come a knockin' to play. We arrange playdates. My kids don't run our neighborhood." I am sure, when I was a little girl in Burley, Idaho, it was cool and nice to have people knock on our door seeking for some sort of playdate. I wonder how it was for the parents, though. But, now, as an adult and one having gotten used to that being practically a Vegas-faux-pas I am kinda bugged that our neighbor boy, Jason, has turned a little stalker-ish. And he doesn't mind very well. And he has a loud voice. And, well, basically I wouldn't arrange a playdate with him, but seeings as we're neighbors and should be neighborly he hung out today.

It started innocently enough with us outside cleaning out our trailer, changing a tire, sweeping spider webs, etc. while the kids rode their bikes and played around outside (the weather's been wonderful!) when I hear Jason start to play with Brevin. He's 5 and we rarely see these neighbors as they're less social than we are in the cul-de-sac. They have a son who's 10 and this Jason and he and Brevin hit it off with Star Wars talk, which evolved to the trailer, and pretty soon Jason is telling his mom he can come in our trailer and play. (I'm inside thinking, uh, no, no you can't because I don't even want to be in here and there's no way we're gonna be that fun and play in the trailer [unlike cool Aunt Erin and Uncle Kevin]) But when he and his mom show up at the door I offer a look inside WHICH opens the door for my kids to pile in there and so they sat around for a few minutes before I kicked em all out, finished sweeping, and locked the door. By then the bonds of friendship have been forged and Brevin's inviting Jason inside the house to which I warned, "Don't get anything out; we're leaving shortly" because we were going to grab some lunch and get the tire fixed. Well, convincing Jason to get out of my house was awful. His mom came to help, but wasn't so much. Had she been outside I could have been a little more firm when he ran into the opposite room EVERY TIME I or his mom walked in to where he was. Instead she's saying things like, "Jason, remember how we talked about listening to adults?" I'm thinking something like, "Knock it off and get outside" would have been appropriate at that time. We finally got him out of the garage once he had driven the battery-powered super wheel into the ladder and through the garage and once Tyler almost closed the garage door on him as we were leaving and he wouldn't get out of the way.

So, when we were done with lunch and the tire Tyler dropped me and Brock off for a nap. (7am dance practice and a crappy night's sleep - thank you Brock) necessitated it and Tyler took the other kids to help his mom and dad move some stuff. It took forever to Brock to go to sleep, so right as he's dozed off I hear JASON in our house with Brevin (I guess they had just gotten home) and his mom is right in the middle of my living room, too. Apparantly Jason had just bolted inside, so I explained I had just gotten Brock to sleep and if the boys wanted to play they had to do so outside where Tyler was. And the mom is literally pulling the 5 year old out of the house. Next think I know, I am waking up and Tyler tells me the girls just walked Jason home. I guess he ended up back over and inside and played for a bit. I hear the girls come in and a few minutes later I hear somebody else's voice I don't recognize. Yeah, it's Jason, the mom, and the brother walking out from down the hall. I had just re-awoken from the last time she was pulling him out, so she apologizes again about how they are trying to explain to Jason that it's not okay to walk into the neighbor's house unless he's invited. I'm thinking, "uh, yeah, okay, but if you really want to make that impression on him perhaps you could sound a little more serious and less sweet about it."

Whatever. I am sure he's nice and all. It's probably more my ickiness and tiredness today. I'm headed to use a JoAnn's coupon before it expires and to see if I can eat up some time before bed time since Tyler's at the UNLV game. Hasta - la grumpy neighbor!