Playmates and Paska

I'm a farm girl through and through.

Growing up, my closest neighbors lived over a mile away.   After the bus dropped me off at home in the late afternoon, my brother and sister were my only playmates for the rest of the evening...not counting dogs, cats, chickens, cows, horses and for a brief season- pigs.  Play-dates were not vogue as they are nowadays and to be honest, there was usually enough going on around the farm to keep us busy anyways.

With that being said, you can understand how at the age of almost 37 I remain clueless about the culture of "neighbourhood kids."  But I'm learning quickly.

Two weeks after we moved into our condo complex, my daughter met her first neighbour.  She is a lovely little 6 year old we'll call Kelly (only because of her resemblance to Barbie's little sis) with sun-bleached hair hanging down her back and all the answers to life's burning questions. That afternoon the two of them played outside together for nearly three hours, and when it was time for everyone to retreat to their homes for dinner, Molly came inside grinning with the satisfaction of finally having a real life friend.  I thought it was sweet.

The next morning at 7am as we sat at the breakfast table in our pajamas, the door opened and in walked Kelly asking if Molly and her brother could come out to play.  My husband and I sat with our mouths open as the two girls hurried out the door (in hindsight, was Molly even dressed?).

Since then, we've come to realize that around here, an open door policy is assumed.  Perhaps its the whole condo thing, perhaps it's an islander thing...whatever it is...it's a thing.  Between Kelly and another little boy one door down who we'll call Mowgli (for his glaring similarities to the well-known jungle boy), there is a revolving door of kids in and out of our condo most afternoons.

At first I was unnerved.  I felt like my privacy was invaded, and I agonized over the attitudes and actions they might be teaching my crew as they all played outside without blatant supervision.  I'd hover near the windows and listen to their every word, running out to check on them every 5 minutes.  I even had a paranoid urge to do a background check on the kids and their parents (does a Google search qualify as a "background check?") and toyed with the idea of locking all the doors, closing the windows and keeping my own kids inside every afternoon.  In that moment it occurred to me that I had successfully kept my two oldest in a manageable bubble for the first 3-4 years of their life.  And maybe I wasn't prepared to let them out of it just yet.

Too bad for me.

A few weeks ago Kelly came in unannounced and found me in the kitchen.

"Whatcha makin?" she asked, standing on her tip-toes to see up on the counter.
"Paska," I answered.
"What's that?" she asked with a wrinkled nose.
"Well, it's Easter Bread."
"Can I help?"

I stopped my kneading and looked over at Kelly...her grubby hands and pleading look.  For a second I wondered if she ever baked with her Mom.  I had hardly even seen evidence of parents from the condo downstairs.  I looked at her long and hard.  My discomfort with having unknown neighbour kids hanging around my house began to dissolve as a thought suddenly entered my head, "How does Jesus see Kelly?"

In an instant, I knew.  If Jesus lived in unit X-21, the open door policy would be a no-brainer.

I hoisted Kelly up to the sink and washed her grubby hands, listening to her chatter.  Then I pulled up a stool, showed her how to knead the bread, and let her go to it.  She kneaded happily and heartily for some time while we talked about life.  Ten minutes later, as if suddenly remembering, she announced,

"Oops!  I'm not supposed to come in your house!"  And just like that, she skipped out the door.

I washed my hands and finished my kneading, watching out the window as Kelly rejoined my crew playing at the bottom of the stairs.  Sure, my kids will be exposed to a whole lot playing with random neighbourhood kids, I thought.  We'd already had to unlearn the word "stupid," emphasize the importance of "hands-to-yourself play" (a lesson poor little Mowgli still hasn't learned), and the value of saying "no" to things we know aren't right.  But maybe, just maybe, my kids could impart a little something on their friends too: that hands are for helping and not for hurting, the benefits of using only encouraging words, the plain and simple profundity that we love because HE first loved us...and that HE loves them too.

I know, I know.  My kids aren't angels, and they'll likely to get into their fair share of tussles and troubles during the afternoons with the local neighbourhood kids.  They may unknowingly take on a few unwanted attitudes and actions before passing on some good fruit in the other direction.

But you've got to start somewhere.

Why not with Paska?