On Children

I don't really spend that much time with Children who are older than one. As in, Children who can talk.

The other night I went to spend a couple hours with Celisse while she was babysitting Olivia. I'd heard a lot about Olivia. She is a very precocious three year old. It's like she is a very small, normal person, but she is really three. My favorite Olivia-ism is that she always says. "Well you can if you want to, but if you don't want to that's okay too." Also she calls her mom "Mother" which is a very foreign thing.

But the next day, I had a weirder encounter. Kylie told me that a kid might come over and knock on the door, but that I didn't have to answer it. And I didn't think this would actually happen.

Daisy started barking, and was clearly looking at someone who would be at the front door, so I looked out the window, and down on the porch was a young boy who was knocking softly on the door.
Then he was banging on the door. I couldn't ignore him, because there were lights obviously on, and my car was in the driveway.
I cracked open the door.
"Hello?" I said, into the one inch of open space, where he was looking at me, shyly.
"Hi."
"They're not here," I said. Because I didn't know what else to say.
"That's okay, they told me they'd be gone."
And I waited for him to state his name and purpose.
.
..
...
"They told me I could come in and pet the dog."
I thought about saying sorry, and please come back another time, but it struck me how lonely he must be to come over and have his excuse to come in be that he wanted to pet the dog.
"Okay." I said. And I opened the door and let him in, and I just sat on the steps and wondered what to do. I thought to say, Sorry I'm not wearing real pants. Or, Would you like a cookie, or something. But some people wear leggings as pants, and he shouldn't know the difference. Also offering a cookie would extend this awkward visit.
"How old are you," he asks, trying not to look at me, but also trying to see what I looked like.
"Twenty-two." I said.
"Oh you are old. You are thirteen years older than me." He immediately calculated.
"How old are you?" I asked, not immediately calculating.
"Nine."
Somehow I didn't believe him.
"My birthday was September 11, 2001." He said.
"What?"
"September 11, 2001. The day the twin towers fell."
"Oh my gosh."
"Yeah," he said. Still trying not to look at me. "They told me you'd be a kid."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. I guess they were wrong." He said. I didn't try to explain to him that kids can't drive to other people's houses and stay the night by themselves. He thought I'd be a kid who would want to play guns or Xbox or something.
I silently sat there, watching him pet the dog, who was enjoying the attention.
"Okay, I guess I should go now." He said, and walked out the door.
"It was nice to meet you," I said, and locked the door behind him, and then ran up to the window to watch where he would go.

He looked around the neighborhood for a heavy moment. Just spacing out. And then he picked up some snow and turned it into a snowball. I felt weird to keep watching him, and went to finish lunch.

I thought about how many hundreds or thousands of people out there are really lonely. Maybe there is even another person in this neighborhood who is lonely.

But it's kind of reassuring to me that kids can still do weird stuff, like we did in the 90's. That he could just walk up to the house and start knocking.