Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Scenes from a cul-de-sac

Recent, fresh snow drew the children outside. It was one of those wonderful snows that I have missed: pure white, fairly dry, easy to pack. A snowball fight broke out and two teams of two devised ways of ambushing each other. Sleds made their way out of garages and then down the pile of snow from previous plowings.

Scooter wanted to go play with the kids, so we ventured out in our snow gear. We wandered out to where the kids were having a snowball fight and half joined in. Scooter tossed a little snow at anyone who was nearby. The older boys were wonderful, gently tossing light snowballs at him, falling over whenever he got some snow on them.

When a few sleds came out, Scooter was unhappy that his was still at Grandma and Grandpa's. He grumped about that for a while, but came around when he had a chance to join a younger boy in an inner tube. One of the next door neighbors pulled them down our driveway, and we took turns pushing them back up.

Other parents came out to the cul-de-sac too, and we chatted for a long time with the neighbor who's an audiologist and speech pathologist for the school district.

This is not an uncommon scene in our neighborhood, according to what we've heard. In the summer kids are out almost non-stop. Our driveway, apparently, serves as the locus of many activities, especially sledding and bike riding. All of the parents keep an eye out for all of the kids.

This is so very much what we wanted.

3 comments:

moplans said...

oh wow.
that is the dream isn't it?
sounds like a great community.

Bea said...

It sounds like you've landed in heaven.

Laural Dawn said...

That's amazing.
I love watching kids who are slightly older than my son playing with him. It's so cute.
What a wonderful neighbourhood.