Bite the Bullet

Well, I did it. I marched across the street and finally and officially introduced ourselves to the family with 2 sweet little girls (one that turned up in E's soccer camp). This may not seem like a daunting task to many of you, but it's been nagging at me for years, (yes, I said years). I am pretty much a homebody and reaching out of my comfort zone paralyzes me. I've hated talking on the phone for as long as I can remember, and making new friends is so painful for me. I am comfortable with the handful of friends that I have, and only until recently really didn't see the point of adding an extra ball to juggle.

Don't get me wrong, we've been 'neighborly,' we wave at one another when we pass each other on the street, and I've made small talk with their (newly divorced) mom at the mailbox once or twice. But summoning the courage and admitting to myself that E and I probably needed them to be a part of our lives and vice versa was hard. One of the little girls, Kate, is just a few months older than E and last week it hit me that she could very well have her best friend in the whole wide world living across the street and we didn't even know it yet. E has a lot of friends, but the reality is that all of them just so happen to be boys or are a handful of years older than her. They are all dearly loved, dare I say viewed as part of our family, but as she's getting older (almost 4, can you believe it?) and without siblings I think we're all sensing that she's in need of someone to run around with.

So I did it, and wouldn't ya know it, they're great. We met up with them at the beach yesterday afternoon and had a great time. Jeannie, their mom and I talked effortlessly (this is huge folks!) while the kids ran around collecting shells, wadding into the water, and built sandcastles. They had such a good time, in fact, that a few minutes after we all had arrived back to our respective houses there was a knock on our front door with the girls asking if they could continue to play with E! They played on the swing set, colored, played dress-up for 2 more hours!

Finally.

Maybe we just needed to right set of circumstances, but now I feel like I'm part of the neighborhood. And not as worried about our little girl.