We've somehow picked up a stray in our neighborhood. He comes by several times a day wanting to play with the kids. He's cute, but I'm not interested in adding another being to take care of.
Unfortunately, I'm not talking about a dog or cat. This stray is a little boy. He's six years old and he wanders around the neighborhood looking for people to play with. Similar to a stray dog, once you've let him in, he thinks he lives there. We've played with him occasionally over the summer, but once his older brothers and sisters went back to school he attached himself to us with cute but annoying devotion.
His family is the disadvantaged one in our neighborhood. The parents are divorced. The kids are a bit scruffy, and they spend most of the day away from home. This little 6 year old has never been taught social graces or propriety. Case in point, one afternoon he came to the door and rang the doorbell 6 or 7 times in a row before I could get to it, intermittently knocking. When he asked to play I told him Pumpkin was asleep (or was before the doorbell). He said "OK, well can I come in and play with his toys while he sleeps?"
On Friday we were pretty much with him all day long. He played with us for 3 hours in the morning. I finally sent him home for lunch, and he came back in an hour and I had to turn him away since the kids were sleeping. He told me he'd wait for them to get up and he sat down on the front stoop to do just that. I have no idea how long he waited. When the kids woke up close to 2 hours later he was gone. But he must have telepathy or something because 1/2 an hour later we were getting ready to walk to the park when he showed up again and asked if he could go to the park with us. I took a deep breath and said "Sure." We walked by his house on the way and asked whatever adult he could find. It wasn't his mom. I'm not sure who it was.
Now don't get me wrong, I love having my kids play with other kids. Usually it means less work for me and more fun for them. But this kid is starved for attention. He's constantly calling for me to watch him and asking for more toys to play with. Right now I just don't feel like I have the energy to add another person into our family. That's why we're holding off on getting a dog.
Today is Sunday. I've seen more of this kid over the last few days than I wanted to see in a week. But he shows up at 9:30 and asks if he can go to church with us. This family doesn't go to church, and I don't know if they're inactive Mormons or not members of the church. But how can I pass up taking a little boy to church who wants to go? He says it's ok with his mom and wants to wait at our house. Church is at 11. The hours of 10-11 are the busiest time in our house all week. I still need to shower, get the kids in the bath, D is still asleep and we all need to get second-breakfast so we don't starve during the third hour of church. I'm worried that the Kid doesn't know what he's in for with three hours to go. I told him that we stay at church the whole time and that he'll have to behave himself and listen to me and his teachers. I don't have a carseat for him, but I have a booster seat that Pumpkin has yet to be tall enough to use. I guess I can take him to church, but I have a worry knot growing in my stomach that things aren't going to turn out quite right. He's going to commit a faux pas or need to go home halfway through church and I'm going to be stuck holding the hot-potato.
I have no idea what to do. It's not easy to send him away when I need to, but he seems to take it in stride like it happens all the time. That in itself is sad. I've never even met his mom, I wonder why she seems to send her kid out all the time to play with other people I wonder why she seems to trust someone else to take her son in their car to another location. I wonder why she thinks other people won't mind babysitting her son for hours and hours.
There are other kids in the neighborhood who I like much more and who I wish Shay would make friends with, but that doesn't seem to happen. Sure, they're friends and enjoy playing together, but none of them has attached themselves to our family like this Kid. Oh, and Kid doesn't play well with others. He'll take a toy without asking or yell at another kid if he doesn't like what that kid is doing.
Do I start from scratch training a 6 year old, or do I send him to back home and hope they do it? Just thinking about it makes me tired...
*It's an electric pottery wheel for throwing clay pots
