Several posts ago I wrote about Charlie's cowboy birthday party and mentioned the special bond between our neighbor and my kids, Charlie and Delta. This family moved into the house across the street just before Christmas in 2004. They have three boys: one who is in college, one Bravo's age, and one two years younger (right smack between Bravo and Charlie). Neighbor Lady strikes me as someone who was a bit of a tomboy when she was a child, so having three boys hasn't really been much of a problem for her. However, she has felt the lack of feminine influence in her family, so it was a bit of a pleasant surprise for her to meet Delta.
Delta is in many ways our most unusual child. Miss Saccharine and I are both fairly reserved around strangers, and the other four kids range from shy to hostile when meeting new people (Bravo is still learning that "(Grunt)" is not a polite response when someone says, "So nice to meet you!"). Delta has developed the habit over the last two years of greeting every child she meets at the park and setting up play dates with at least one, even if she has never met the child before. Within a few weeks of meeting the new neighbor family, Delta began making regular visits to Neighbor Lady. For her part, Neighbor Lady loves Delta's visits: for some length of time every few days, she can ignore all the typical boy stuff (video games, charging like rhinos through the house, flatulence) and listen to Delta talk about ballet, princesses, and arts and crafts. Neighbor Lady and her husband have told me several times that Delta's visits are a regular subject of conversation at Neighbor Lady's women's meeting at church.
When Neighbor Lady discovered that Charlie likes cowboys a couple of years ago, she decided she had found a kindred spirit. None of the males in her family are all that into cowboys--they're more into knights and video games. She has loaned us old western movies from her collection, called to tell us about rodeo on the telly, and shared the lessons learned that she has gained through many years and trying different models of cap guns. At the time we were planning Charlie's cowboy party and came up with the idea for the posse capturing the band of outlaws, we knew we were going to need several helpers--there were going to be at least five guests, and MS, Alpha, Bravo, and I weren't going to be enough. Alpha's friend wasn't available and none of Bravo's friends would have probably been interested. We needed two more bandits who needed to have the flexibility and live close enough to us to pretty much get over to our place at the drop of a hat (see the earlier post for the low-down on the sketchy weather). Then it hit us: Neighbor Lady would probably love to be a cowboy.
When we asked her, she fairly skedaddled home to fetch her western outfit to find out if we thought she might be too intimidating for a group of 8-year-old boys. She was back quickly with a hat, bandana, gun belt and holster, and one of the best-firing pistols we have ever seen. Needless to say, she got the gig. She brought her son (Bravo's age) with her for the party, and the two of them played their parts to the hilt and had a great time doing it. She came back over a couple of times during the week after the party to chat with us and shoot caps with Charlie.
Anyway, between Delta becoming a virtual proxy daughter, and Charlie's affinity for cowboys, Neighbor Lady has apparently found her bliss. I'm just hoping our kids don't wind up driving her crazy with all the attention they might well shower upon her.
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