Old-school playdating

The nice weather this spring brought out a pack of feral children to prowl our neighborhood.  Actually, they're very nice children from a family up the street, but their sudden appearance took me aback.  The same people have owned that house for ten years, and we never saw children there before; now there are five children under the age of ten out in the front yard every afternoon looking for someone to play with.  Faith and Eric have gotten in the habit of joining them; then Olivia, a second-grader from up the other side of the street, joins them sometimes; and a little girl about Eric's age from across the street likes to come out and play when the older kids will let her keep up with them.

They sit in the yard and play, ride their bikes back and forth to the corner, and share snacks from various people's refrigerators.  It's all very Leave It to Beaver.  The last two evenings, Faith and Eric have gone to sit in the yard across the street and play board games with the little girl there.  Once I got over my bemusement at the retro nature of  it all -- isn't everything supposed to be scheduled playdates and helicopter parents these days? -- it makes for a nice break in the evenings to just let them go out in the yard and look up and down for someone to play with.  Better than watching PBS all afternoon.