This neighborhood has excellent children.

Just a note from our afternoon walk. I loaded Audrey into the backpack to walk down to Busa Farm at the end of our street, and on the way there I crossed paths with three boys, ages (I'm guessing) 9, 10 and 12. Now, normally I would expect to be noticed by boys of this age only if they were stopping to, say, aim a snowball at my head or throw a firecracker onto my porch. But these kids, who live on the block, saw Audrey and said:

"Oooooooooooooooooooooh! What a cute baby!"
"What's her name?"
"How old is she?"

See why I was surprised? Those are the kind of questions I expect from 80-year-old women at the grocery store, but how nice-- and how unusual-- to have this sort of interaction with three kids on their way to a pick up game of hoops with their friends. Kids, I might add, who were not being prompted/prodded/goaded into their politeness by any adults.

I specifically recognized one of the boys as being the same young man we ran into when Audrey was four days old and we took her out for her first walk. (Picture us walking nervously, one cautious step at a time, as if we had a Faberge egg in the Baby Bjorn). He was riding his bike and yelled-- to our total astonishment-- "Congratulations on your baby!"

A fine neighborhood we have.