Whose Kid Is That?

My Son.

23 months old.

A few days ago I was standing in my backyard with a friend. Said friend was hanging some laundry on a drying rack after making a brief foray away from camp life. The kids had followed us downstairs and were playing with some balls around our feet as we stood outside and chatted. The neighbour's child started crying.

My friend and I are talking and this child keeps on crying. The cries are getting escalated and I look up at our neighbours balcony but can't see anything.

We bought a duplex. Ours is the left side. Or as Hugh says, the non-hot tub side. Landscaping and fencing aren't done by builders here and as it was only completed in May neither of us has gotten to that yet.

Anyway.

You can hear pain and maybe panic in the poor child's cry and I was thinking wow I can't believe our neighbours are just letting their little girl cry like that. We rarely hear our neighbours and I was struck with how much their daughter's cry sounded like Tristan's. Weird.

But I'm a good mom. I know where my children are at all times. For example I know that Ava is walking in and out of the back door and Tristan is spinning his ball on the ground beside me...or not...

"Tristan!" Well he can't have gotten far. There's no need to panic.

"Come on buddy where are you?!" Where is he? I can't believe the neighbours kid is still crying. Omigosh! What if he's running down the road...

"TRISTAN!"

I glanced into the neighbours yard because they still weren't doing anything about their crying kid and it was starting to get to me. That's when I noticed Tristan's back end sticking up. He had managed to get his head caught between the steps leading up to the neighbours hot tub and he was screaming bloody murder.

The neighbours daughter's cry is eerily like Tristan's? Seriously now.

After easing Tristan's head back out and drying his tears we headed back inside.

The lesson for today is when you have 2 children who are both 23 months of age chances are you don't actually know where everyone is at all times.

Oh yeah and look at the plank in your own eye before trying to remove the speck in your neighbours. Or in another paraphrase, look to your own crying child before accusing the neighbour of negligence to theirs.