Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Neighbor kids and bread

We have some neighbor kids who have started to come over and ask to play. They live a couple blocks away, and while I know where they live, I have never met their parents. So I told them they can play, but they have to stay outside until their mom comes with them sometime to talk to me and tell me it's okay for them to play inside. They can only come in to use the bathroom or get a drink. Am I mean? I would NEVER let my kids go play at someone's house that I didn't know!!! And to play without me there, I would have to know the family quite well. The kids are about 9, 7, and 5 years old. Any thoughts? I don't want to be mean, but I'm not comfortable having them inside without knowing their family at least a little bit. They seem like really nice kids and do a good job including everyone and I keep all the windows open so I can monitor them all really closely.

Anyway, they were here today and I was baking. I made bread, pizza, and was working on cookies when they all came in for drinks. They asked if they could have cookies and I said probably not because I wasn't going to cook them until after I cooked dinner and they had to go home at dinner time. But I told them they could have a slice of bread if they wanted. The oldest boy looked at me funny and said, "We just buy our bread, but we do make sandwiches out of it." I explained this is homemade bread and it was cooking in the oven. The expression got even more confused and he asked, "So is it just bread or is it from ingredients?" I just had to laugh.

(I ended up sticking in one pan of cookies before the pizza, so they got those instead of bread, then I sent them home so my kids could do their jobs while the pizza cooked).

2 comments:

the Arpkes said...

Hello Janet! How are you? How is your pregnancy going? I'm with you 100% on only letting the kids play outside. You never know these days how people will react. I would do the same thing. That is hilarious about the bread! Well I hope things are going well for you and your family. Hopefully I will see you around sometime soon!

Anonymous said...

I don't think you are "mean" at all. I wouldn't say that I am paranoid, just vigilent about with who, what and where my children play. That being said, I too would not send my kids over to a house without at least meeting and talking to the parent.

I make from scratch rolls at least once a week and people (adults and kids) always give me this look of utter amazement when they find out. So funny! They probably think that cookies just come from a bag.