I would just like to make it known to the world that my neighbor children are the cutest children in the entire world. No, don't try to protest. I know you think that you know or perhaps have even produced children more adorable, but...you haven't seen these kids. I don't even like kids. But it has to be said, beyond any murmur of contestation, that these kids are the quintessence of kid-ness.
In the house on our right lives a Chinese family, and they have two girls, one who's maybe 3 years old (and has pigtails!) and one who's maybe a year old. The other day I came out onto our porch to check on health of my fuschia plant, and there, on a porch completely strewn with toys, was the littlest girl and her grandma, who was squatting on some kind of box. As soon as I walk out, the little girl looks up at me, smiles, and starts waving, that little kid wave in which the hand opens and closes on itself like a clam shell. I, of course, smile and wave back. And the grandmother looks at her, looks at me, and beams ecstatically, pointing at her as if to say, "Look, do you see what she's doing? Isn't she the most brilliant child you've ever seen in your life?" I smile and nod, "Yes, she's amazing!"
On the left there are two houses before the end of the block, and I think a large Burmese family resides in each house. They each have a pack of kids who are always traipsing back and forth to each other's houses, pretending to fight with little swords, screaming at each other, riding bikes or roller skates up and down the block, while their mamas and aunties talk on the porch. These kids are much more free (largely because they are older) in roaming around and their wanderings occasionally seem to include our little postage stamp of front yard. But they never come when the door's open or when we're outside the house. You'll just see signs they have been there, like the visitations of little fairy children. One day I found a little strand of plastic beads flung in the yard, another day there was a plastic replica of the Death Star with different Star Wars character stickers all over it. And just the other day there was a fragile-looking pink rose, almost out of sight on the front step, with a few stray petals scattered over the porch.
Today I was working at my desk in front of the open window of my room and I heard little voices coming from very close by. I looked out casually, and didn't see anyone, and went back to work until I heard the voices again. This time I looked out and there were two little boys from next door, one of them had our hose and was yelling to the other to turn the water on (this is conjecture, they don't really speak English to each other, so I never have a clue what they're saying). Then when the water finally came, he took our hose and went, methodically and with precision, around the entire yard and watered our garden. No joke, they could not have done a neater or more careful job if we had hired them to do it. He went carefully around the entire perimeter, watering the mum and my marigold, the squash vines, then back to the flowers before his brother called him back to pay special attention to a weed growing at the edge of the squash plant. All the weeds that have filled in around the flowers, as well as the unruly patch of Queen Anne's Lace that's growing wild back there were all given careful attention. Even the heads of the daisies that hung over the concrete were given their fair share (I don't think they quite understood that only the roots of the plants really need the water). Then they started to give careful attention to watering the fire pit, I think they might actually have been trying to fill it with how much time they spent pouring water into it, and I was going to go down and say hello and probably mention that the fire pit didn't need quite so much water, but by the time I made it to the backyard, they were altogether gone, and the only sign that they had ever been there was that the hose had been left on. Fairy children indeed!
I really wished that I could go out and offer them each a homemade cookie, but I have none on hand at the moment. I suppose that after that every kid in the neighborhood would start coming around for cookies, but I don't know that I would mind. I have always had secret ambitions to grow up to be the lady who always had a fresh hot cookie, a hug and a story for any kid who came to her. Basically, I think I wanted to grow up to be Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. Have I arrived already? Am I a Grown Up so soon? Small price to pay to be The Cookie Lady for the world's cutest children!
S.
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