One of my priorities is spending time as a FAMILY - right? RIGHT! And one of the blessed things about owning a home and yard is having private FAMILY play time - right? RIGHT!So then - what's this "It takes a village to raise a child." - African proverb, that Ms. Clinton raves about?
What about FAMILY first?
Certain neighbors seem to take the village quote to heart and with no learned boundaries, set sail to the new neighborhood park - a.k.a. our yard!
I suppose I ought to embrace all the rugrats (who show up uninvited EVERY DAY - or several times a day) with loving arms and teach them manners and give them cookies and milk and yellow balloons...
but you see... I don't have enough energy or patience or time to mother the wandering neighborhood kids. In fact, I have a hard enough time keeping up with the 3 I already have and the ONE I'm growin'.
I realize we are about the only ones on the entire street to have grass. And I like sharing our green grass - but only in moderation. I enjoy having friends over to play ... the nice, kind, sweet friends. But in my mind - FAMILY always comes first.
I desire casual FAMILY play time - when I can go outside and watch the tots have adventures. When I can talk with them uninterrupted, help them, or have a random heart-to-heart that always seems to happen with down-time.
Perhaps my brain can't handle too much chaos, but as soon as certain neighbor kids walk into our yard, I can tell I change as a mother. I feel more like a referee or like I'm on the defense. Perhaps it's the control freak in me that needs to just relax more. Or, maybe it's me realizing my responsibility to help guide my children while they are young to seek out the best sort of friends - true friends who care and give back.
The other night we had 11 kids wandering in and out of our yard playing on the swing set. Maybe that's not alot for some, but it was too many for me to handle calmly. A 2-year-old, from who knows where, wandered in and somehow wandered home safely. Watching over 6-year-olds is much different than monitoring 2-year-olds.
I was refereeing the mess of whose turn it was on the swings and turned my back for 30 seconds and Max ran around the side of the house where I couldn't see him and didn't know how far he'd run. To the street?? Hannah and I ran around and caught him quickly, but it reinforced in my mind why I NEED to/like to spend time with just my FAMILY and not be the mother hen to the neighborhood.
My PRIORITY right now has to be to teach, love, spend time with, round up, and have fun with MY kids.
My PRIORITY right now has to be to teach, love, spend time with, round up, and have fun with MY kids.
One of the neighbor kids commented, "Just too many kids to watch over," after the Max running off incident. My response and tone indicated my mood about the situation... something like, "yes, that that is why we will rarely have neighborhood playtime."
So, I've been gearing up to be firm but hopefully kind with the neighbors to establish guidelines and boundaries before summer comes. We will have FAMILY play time most every day with an occasional/rare neighborhood time. Is that mean?
Perhaps this experience is teaching me the value of quality time with my tots. Maybe it's teaching me to love the neighbors and seek to understand them. Gotta learn something from life circumstances.
"Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities." Proclamation on the Family
6 comments:
Good luck setting some neighborhood limits - fences really are wonderful. My kids always want to play out front with the other neighbor kids, but I don't really like a lot of our neighborhood kids and don't want my kids to be around them. Fortunately our backyard is fenced in and I tell my kids they can play out back or in the house.
I'm learning how to be kind and firm with the neighbor kids and tell them that "now isn't friend time", or that they can go home now. I'm a little nervous for this summer to see if I really am learning. It's easy during the school year when most of the kids aren't around during the day. Luckily two of my neighbors are firm setting limits - one has friend time at a certain day and time and the other kids know that it is no use to come over at any other time except the allowed time. Her setting limits like that makes it easier for me to do the same.
You can do it!
What about a fence? I know they are so much money- but my sister (in Lehi too) put in a fence this spring and she is so happy! That way you can monitor who you want in there. You can actually invite over your friends to play and hopefully their mother will come with them so you aren't watching the entire neighborhood. Good luck!
Oh my goodness, I love this post! I completely understand and can picture it all. That is a great idea to have a set day/time for neighbor friends to play. So hard to enforce though! We just got a new swing set and had half the neighborhood over... they just flock. Good luck managing that.
I'm with the fence idea! Good luck!
So totally in love with fences, for am million different reasons. We don't have as many friends my kids ages around here. I almost wish we had more sometimes. It would be hard to enforce the set times for me, because I live to spur of the moment flexibility. I am not organized enough, but it sounds awesome. I may work towards it...
My sister has the same problem and another friend majorly struggles with this! I have heard of a great idea that might help. You can put up a red stop sign in your window when your kids aren't able to play, and a green go sign when it's a good time to have friends come over for fun. That way you can teach the neighbor kids to look to see what's in the window before they come on over. Just an idea...
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