Warning...laughter

Over time, we come to recognize our place in this world with ever-increasing clarity and striking vision. For our family, one of those revelations pertains to our role in the neighborhood. Apparently, before we moved in, life was quite dull. All of the homes but ours and a select few, were still inhabited by the original owners and since the homes had been built in the 60s, many of them were enjoying their retirement years in the privacy of a small horseshoe-shaped road hidden from any of the major roads around it. How many times through the years have we heard, "I didn't even know this road existed?"

And then the Kings moved in. They had a lot of kids. They became foster parents. They added more. They adopted. They had Victor. And things started to get interesting.

Our role became that of neighborhood entertainment. When a cop car turns up at the home of a retiree, it is usually accompanied by an ambulance and as we've watched far too often, it is a solemn occasion. When a cop car shows up at the King house, get your binoculars Wilson, it's going to be a fun couple of hours!

But things have calmed down in the last two years. The Kings took a break from fostering and are now being very choosy in placement calls. Older kids have moved on. The neighbors started spending too much time on their phones and electronic devices - nothing to see here, Mabel, go back to sleep.

So while we've had to say no to the last four phone calls for foster children (what part of "no more teenagers" do they not understand?), we did decide to get new windows. Who knew window replacement day would be so entertaining? Caution tape, warning sign on the door...

I only left for an hour and they had

cordoned off the driveway, too!

Thankfully we are only replacing two so that in a few years we can choose two more and do this again. We certainly don't want to be known as slackers in the neighborhood entertainment industry.

But I can still vape and drink in my home, right?

The moral of the story is this, if you, too, have been selected as the neighborhood entertainment, let me suggest fostering or new windows. The latter is much easier but the former wins the fulfilling-yet-not-for-the-weak-of-heart category.