Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Of neighbors and soccer

So we have a bit of a tortured relationship with our neighbors.  I want to like them, but they take the parking spot that we are meant to share and it irritates me.

Anyway, so I already found them a teensy bit irritating and then one day, I saw the woman directing her friend to park her huge Land Rover on the sidewalk (perpendicular to the sidewalk, so that there was no hope of passing by it).  Eli claims that the area we live is poorly designed and results in people parking on the sidewalks, and that it's not exactly the fault of the bad parkers, but it is extremely frustrating for me because I have two kids on bicycles and we constantly have to go out into the road to get around parked cars.

So, when I saw her directing her friend's car onto the sidewalk, I rolled down my window and said, "it's really hard for kids who are walking or on bikes to pass cars that are parked like that" and she said, "well, she is only staying one hour and if she parks on the street, she will have a sticker put on her car."  So I said, "okay" and then drove into the garage.  But she knew I was irritated (it is a short walk from her front door to an official parking place).

Fast forward to last week and Tommy got in trouble at school for play fighting on the playground.  (This story is much longer but I'm not sure it's fair to share here as he feels tenderly about it.)  In my complete dedication to making his life happy and easy, I have decided that he needs an alternative playground strategy and it seems obvious to me that it should be soccer as there are always games during lunch recess.  (As an aside, it turns out Tommy could not play in these games because the shade was ripped down during a storm before Christmas and consequently children are required to wear hats and he has not had one at school until TODAY when I remembered to send one.)

The one flaw in my strategy (well, apart from the hat) is that Tommy is not great at soccer.  He tries, but I heard him telling a kid at the park that he didn't want to be the goal keeper anymore, that instead, "I'll be the athlete!"  Anyway, he's cute and I think he has plenty of potential to be a decent soccer player, but at the moment he is not.

So I was at the park with him and a cute little guy started passing the soccer ball with Tommy and I realized the kid was AMAZING.  The kid told me that his big brother is 15 and taught him how to play.  So I started thinking that maybe what I should do is find someone like that to play with Tommy a few times and see if we could get him a bit more comfortable with soccer.  But of course, if I find some high schooler to play soccer with Tommy, I'll have to clear it with the kid's mom.  I asked the kid if his big brother might want to teach Tommy?  The kid didn't really answer and so I let it go.

And would you believe that yesterday, that awesome little kid came out of our neighbor's house (that's right, the one I've been borderline rude to) with his nanny?  UGH.


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