Yesterday, Alice struck up a friendship with two kids whose backyard is "kitty corner" to ours, Y and B. The three of them suddenly, somehow, got the idea to start giving each other toys. Alice isn't strong/practiced enough to throw her gifts into their yard, so Y has to climb over a different neighbor's fence to get them. I took this movie from inside the house, holding Robert, who manages to point out a few birds while I'm recording. Why did I take it? I don't really know. I just found it fascinating. This exact toy exchange took place after several other exchanges and you can see their mom come to the back door to ask what they're doing. You can tell that Y knows he's not supposed to be hopping the fence...so many quick glances back towards the house:
A couple exchanges after this one, their mom decides it's enough. I think it's Y's fence-hopping that got him into trouble, but it's hard to tell across the language/culture differences. Their mom only told Alice, "Not today, please." I have mixed feelings about this activity. They exchanged items again this evening. The kids are all obviously excited about the "new" toys, I've only let Alice give away toys that are truly hers to give, and yet I wish she wouldn't do it. Among other things, we are now the proud owners of half a dozen Happy Meal toys that Alice carts around in a dirty Tinkerbell backpack. Erk.
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Hm. Sounds like maybe the moms need to organize an official meetup, no fence hopping required. Good luck with that. Even as kid I didn't like my siblings trading toys with other kids. I wonder how I'll do as a mom during this inevitable stage.
ReplyDeleteJust a thought: perhaps you should change neighbor kids' names for privacy's sake?
Good catch on the privacy thing! I've modified the post.
ReplyDeleteI'm anxious about an official meetup for several reasons. The first and foremost being inexperience. Sigh.