Who wants to ask questions about horses?

June 8, 2012

In the last few weeks I have experienced/heard a number of interesting things with the neighbor kids.

Today was not an exception.  But as Matthew and I went outside to pull weeds, we had a number of kids in the neighborhood come up.  Here are a few things I heard today as well as in the last few weeks.

Me:  Do you guys want to go play in the backyard?
Kids:  Yay!
(except for one kid who is 5 or 7)
Kid:  No.  I want to stay here and pull weeds to earn money.

The kids piled around the stroller where Eli was.  One kid.--6 years old.
Kid:  So, he already popped out of you?

I am sitting in the rocking chair on the front porch feeding Eli.  The 6 year old kid comes up to talk to me.
He looks like he's crying.
Me:  He's not.  He's just eating.
Kid:  Well, when they cry, I heard they liked to be rocked.
The kid then goes on and rocks me in the rocking chair while I feed Eli.

Same Kid:  I went home and wanted to bring you a popsickle back.  But my Mom...
(he got distracted and never finished.  But I got the message.)

Inside yesterday:

Mary and her friend dressed in dress up outfits.  Mary's friend:
Mary, let's surprise Nathan.  He won't know it's us.  He'll think we're real princesses!
They giggled and started off.  I folded laundry while I listened to this.  (coming back down stairs later).
Me:  Did Nathan know it was you?
Mary:  No, we just said Merci, Merci.
Mary's friend:  That means "hi" in French.

Outside:  (I had told Nathan and Mary they couldn't have any friends over today because of some things yesterday.   Please do not comment on the next part of my bad parenting.)

All these kids were outside and one of them looked in our backyard.  We inherited a pretty nice play set and a lot of neighbor kids want to come play on it, apparently.  One little boy stared at it and very innocently came up to me?
Can I play in your backyard?
(and just like that, I kind of melted.  Here was this kid who didn't have a swingset and I could see it in his eyes.  I told him yes.  I will have to rethink my consequences or something.  Mary and Nathan seemed pleased.  I told them they better listen.  They promised they would.)

Mary and her friend were watching TV one day on the pbs station.  The friend started sighing and asked if she could please watch something else.  The show was showing some farm animals or something for a minute.  She said she didn't like it.
"Why don't you like it?"  I asked.  or "Why do you want me to change it?"
she said very matter-of-factly.  "I just want to watch something without pigs in it."

Mary's friend saw some old candy on our counter.  I had not gotten it in the trash, just out of the cupboard.  It was so hard, it might break your teeth.
Mary's friend:  Can I have some of that candy?
Me:  No, sorry, that candy is too hard.
Mary's friend:  I like hard candy.  Just let me try it.
(For the next five or so minutes, there were a number of comments about how she could eat hard candy, etc.  I should have just let her...but I truthfully was worried someone would break a tooth or something.

For some reason, the concept of me and Matthew pulling weeds fascinates a few neighbor kids.  They have come up, asked us what we're doing, and wanted to help.  We don't turn down offers.  They want to look at our dandelion picker.  They want to have turns.  Even today Matthew was helping a 3 year old boy with the picker because he was so interested.

And Nathan today walked down the sidewalk yelling:  Who wants to ask questions about horses?

I do not know why he was saying that.  I do not think he knows that much about horses.