This weekend I learned a wonderful lesson about giving people the benefit of the doubt. Now, I wasn't always so suspicious of people but it seems that age has definitely brought out the crotchety old woman in me. I suppose the ruination of my VERY FIRST CAR by a motorcyclist without insurance who insisted on letting his step-father do the shoddy repairs will do that to a girl.
Still, as a mother, I think it's important to have a more open, accepting, view of people. While I think it's important to teach children how to keep themselves safe, I don't want them growing up afraid of the world, or the people in it, for that matter.
Saturday night, after a long day of hauling and unpacking and cleaning, we had finally settled in for the evening. Elijah was putting Amelia down and Asher was getting ready for bed. I was piddling around upstairs when our doorbell rang. Not a single ring, but a RING-RING-RING-RING ding-dong ditch ring. (I'm pretty sure everyone knows the difference, right?)
I went downstairs to look out the peephole, but I wasn't going to open the door. I didn't want to give those "punk kids" the satisfaction of thinking they'd "gotten me" or whatever. I stared out for a while, saw nothing, gave up and went back upstairs. Sure enough, as soon as I sit back down at the computer the doorbell rings again. I was so annoyed!!! I couldn't believe that this was how we were being welcomed to the neighborhood. I imagined all sorts of scenarios where I'd spend the next 20 years chasing kids off my lawn and calling the police with noise complaints. Just thinking about it was exhausting.
Elijah came down and asked who was at the door. I told him my suspicions and he headed out the back door to surprise the little hood rats. After another five minutes Elijah comes in the front door carrying a bucket of Halloween treats and a note explaining that we'd been BOO'd. Needless to say, I was totally embarrassed about how quickly I'd jumped to conclusions about the kids in the neighborhood.
The note explained that we were to leave goodies and the notes at two other houses in our neighborhood that don't have the little "BOO!" on the door. So last night Asher and I were the "punk kids" harassing the neighbors.
