So I’ve been bitching about my neighborhood a lot lately on Left of the Dial. Which is unfair. Because while everything I said is The Gospel Truth According to Me, it’s also only part of the story. Here’s the flip side:
Today I was walking up the stairs behind The Boy. Remember when our lives changed in oh so many ways, as The Boy discovered The Joys of Stair-Climbing, aka How to Keep Your Parents on Edge for Months at a Time? Well, when we first moved here, The Bean did the same thing. And try as we might, we couldn’t find anything that’d block the stairs to keep her away—and we tried EVERYTHING. What’s more, because of the unique way our banisters are shaped, top and bottom, we can’t just run out to Lowe’s or Home Depot and buy a baby-gate—none of them will fit. So one would need to be specially-made, which is so very far beyond my ridiculously limited abilities.
So with The Bean we basically just took two or three weeks and let her climb the stairs all day until she’d mastered it. And that was that.
The Boy, however, is a bit more of a challenge, due to his skull fracture and his much-better-but-still-existent hypertonia, which means his legs aren’t quite able to stretch out all the way. And he can’t crawl, so he climbs up stairs differently and yadda yadda yadda.
Hey. That’s right. He can’t crawl. After days of agita, that fact finally penetrated my pea-sized brain.
So I simply pushed the piano bench in front of the stairs. And while The Bean would have just crawled under it, The Boy can’t do that. So he can’t get upstairs anymore. Likewise, I put a couple of comicbook longboxes at the top of the stairs, so he (theoretically) can’t fall down. Problem not quite solved, but ameliorated considerably.
But we still want him to learn to climb the stairs, of course, so we make sure we let him practice several times a day. It’s also good for tiring him out when we’re ready to start putting him to sleep. So I’m walking up the stairs behind him this morning and we’re at the very top which, for logistical reasons that are obvious when you actually see the stairs but which are too complex and tedious to get into here, is the trickiest part. And it’s important that he master this final (literally) step. So I’m waiting on him as he maneuvers this way and that, trying and failing to find an easier way to do it. And down below us The Rose and The Bean open the front door and peek out.
I can just see some feet down on our sidewalk. And then a woman says something to the girls and The Rose goes out and picks something up and comes back inside. With a big plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies.
Needless to say, this gets my full attention.
The feet come closer and it’s revealed that they’re attacked to legs which, as they come even closer, turn out to be attached to the rest of a woman. A woman I’ve never seen before but who looks up and sees me standing on the stairs. I later realized she almost certainly couldn’t see The Boy, so she must have thought me most odd and quite rude for simply continuing to stand there almost—but not quite—at the top of the stairs while she’s down below in my doorway, having just delivered some homemade cookies. I mean, seriously, what kind of freak doesn’t come down to grab homemade chocolate chip cookies when he has the chance? She must have been thinking, jeez, no *wonder* this kid’s got so many problems—look what he’s got for a dad.
"Hi," she says, and introduces herself. "We’ve never met, but I heard about The Boy and I thought I’d just bring you guys some cookies."
I thank her, quite sincerely (there’s virtually no easier way to win my heart than with homemade chocolate chip cookies…virtually) and she adds that she knows we’ve got our hands full right now and maybe we’ll have a chance to actually meet officially when The Boy is feeling better.
I thank her again and she makes sure the door is closed securely, somehow sensing that that’s not a particular strong suit of the girls’. And when Top Management comes up later and sees the cookies, she’s pleased but curious and asks who they’re from. I tell her and she looks more confused. I’d just assumed that while *I’d* never met The Cookie Lady before that the two of them knew each other. But no. This woman just lives in our neighborhood, heard about The Boy’s surgery and even though she’d never met any of us before, baked us some cookies to brighten our day.
And she’s not even part of the group of women who signed up to bring us meals while The Boy recuperates. First it was just a neighbor or two. Now we’re getting something like ten meals over the next two weeks. And I can tell you, the first two have both been *outstanding.*
And that’s why, road woes or no, I really like my neighborhood.
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