Glass Houses

The morning of the block party some of the neighborhood boys (10 and under) were cruising around on their scooters. They saw me and came up onto our porch.

“Hey, guys,” I said. “You looking for Judah?”

“No,” said one of the boys — the one that’s usually nicest to Judah. “We wanted to know if we can put the barriers up yet.”

Sigh…

“It’s still kinda early,” I said looking at the vehicles remaining on the street. “Some of these cars will be getting out soon. I’d give it a half hour.”

“Ok.”

Most of Judah’s friendships are transactional. They want to play with his toys or come inside to eat goldfish and Cheezits. No one is asking about how school is going or what happened at soccer. They don’t talk about music or movies or YouTube clips. Actually, I take that back. The fart song had an impact for a couple weeks. So did the chicken nugget song.

“Alexa, play chicken nugget song!!!”

But it’s usually about toys and food.

We keep snack bars in a box on the porch for the delivery people. Sometimes the kids will sneak up the steps and take them. A couple times they’ve discarded their wrappers in the bushes at the bottom.