New Neighbors

The neighbors who lived behind us were from the States.  I actually taught their high school son when he was in first grade.  They moved back to the States in June, and some colleagues of ours moved into their house.  It’s actually a family that spent last Christmas with us.  They have 3 boys: one turns 3 next month, one just turned 5 and one just turned 8.

We invited the boys over one day while their parents were moving things into their house.  I figured that it could be helpful, especially since they probably didn’t have toys unpacked yet to play with, etc.  This is probably one of the only times they have all played inside. 

Since they moved in I think our kids have wanted to play with them every day, as much as possible.  During breakfast, Ethan is already asking if they are outside.  We often have to ask our kids to come inside to eat lunch or get ready for bed.  It’s not like they are all outside ALL day long, but they kind of come and go throughout the day.

This has been a very different experience for all of us (probably for the Strellmans too).  The other family had two adult children in the States and two high school students, so our kids were not so enthusiastic about going over to their house.  All houses in Hungary have fences around them, but we have a gate in the fence between our houses.  Our kids would go to their house to play on the swing set, but they never went anywhere else around the house.  Now we have to think about things that we never thought of before such as telling our kids not to walk out their front gate (to the street), not to pick up rocks and throw them (which they never did before, but have now started doing), etc.  I’m sure this will be a learning curve for us and the Strellmans with figuring out boundaries and what works best for each of our families.

I’m thankful that our kids have other kids so close that they can play with, and especially enjoy being outside with.  They play with some Hungarian children who are neighbors, but not as often.  It will be interesting to see how Sienna ends up doing with even more boys to play with now as she gets older (our team has 6 boys ages 11 and under and only one other girl who is 5 years older than Sienna).