New Neighbors

Our neighbor across the cul de sac just sold her home and moved out. We liked her, and we’ll miss her.

All during the selling process, we always kept a look out for who was looking at the house, wondering who might buy and move in. We saw lots of people looking at the house, some apparently with kids, some apparently without, but we never got to see the actual buyers, until yesterday. Now the new neighbors are starting to move in.

When I came home from work, my boys were out in the cul de sac kicking soccer balls around, and there was a new kid, holding a football, kind of standing around at the end of his driveway. I pulled into our garage, said “Hey,” to my boys, and went in to see Wifegrit. We mentioned that the new neighbors looked to be moving in — no moving van or truck, yet, though. We stood in our living room looking out the front window and watched our boys still playing, and the new kid still watching. After a minute, he walked back up his driveway and sat on the bumper of his parents’ car.

“I’m going to go introduce them,” I said.

“Great idea,” Wifegrit agreed. “Go do that.”

So I went out our front door and my boys came running up to me. “Play soccer with us, Dad!” they both shouted.

“OK,” I said, “but let’s invite the new kid across the street. I’ll introduce you.”

They agreed, but they followed behind me a good ten feet as I walked across the cul de sac and up to the neighbors’ driveway. I greeted the new boy, asked him his name, told him my boys’ names, and invited him to play soccer with us. He smiled and immediately came out with us. He’s in 5th grade, just like Calfgrit11, at the same school — the school literally right across the street — but he’s on a different year-round track.

We played 2-on-2 soccer, (me and Calfgrit7 vs. Calfgrit11 and the new kid), for about 45 minutes, until Wifegrit called us in for dinner, and we said bye to the new kid.

At the dinner table, both our boys seemed happy to have met a new, cool friend, their age. I don’t have anything particularly funny or insightful about any of this. We’re just happy that our boys can have a new friend in the neighborhood, and I’m glad I got to show our boys how to be friendly to new neighbors.

Bullgrit