Sunday, December 19, 2010

Besties

Noah and Ray have a really great corp group of neighborhood friends built up from playgroup and the local playgrounds. But because of the way the Philadelphia school system is and everyone scrambling to come up with their own plan for where to send their kid, none of Noah’s original neighborhood friends go to school with him. And therefore I try to make regular playdates and meetups with his old friends, and their parents who are also my friends, so that we stay close. Tomorrow we are having a kids Christmas party for his friends from the ‘hood. There will be Christmas crafts and a potluck dinner. Not including wee Lee there will be 13 kids here. Of those kids eight of them are school age – 2 are home schooled and the others go to five different schools. Two families have moved but seven remain here in the neighborhood.

As we age and lives take different paths we lose so many people who were once important and hopefully we gain new ones. I don’t see anyone now that I went to kindergarten with, of course we moved around quite a bit until I was in Junior High. But so far I’ve worked hard to keep all the very closest to Noah still close to him. I’ll be so sad for him when people that he really loves move away or drift apart. Every day I think how grateful I would be if my friend Janette returned from Maine and my sister Elisha moved north from Florida. I have holes in my life where they should be. Sure these days we have Facebook, blogging, tweeting, texting, photos and phone all at our fingertips as means to keep in touch. But when YOUR people, the people who you wouldn’t mind if they casually dropped by on a daily basis because you are so at home with them near, when they aren’t close it stinks.
Maia, Victor and Ella are Noah’s best bestest friends. I wonder if he’ll know them in 20 years. I guess it’s silly to hope so, but I’m awfully silly.

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