An apology to the parents of my childhood friends

To those whose homes I ran amok through, whose kitchens I helped wreck while experimenting with new recipes, who listened to giggles until three a.m. when I slept over, and who sometimes wanted to scream "GET OUT!" but didn't, and fed me a snack instead:

Thank you.

Thank you for speaking to me when we run into each other at wedding receptions and the like, and for friending me on Facebook, and for not referring to me as "that weird Ashauer girl" (at least not when I could hear you).

Why the sudden gratitude? (I include my own parents in this, btw)

We have moved to this nice, quiet neighborhood in Orem, and there are a lot of kids Kezie's age. This means that suddenly, we have have as many as half a dozen four and five and six year olds in the house at any given moment, some of which I can't name. They're playing hide and seek. They're arguing. They're eating snacks. They're throwing Legos at each other. They're staring at me while I make dinner (why is that kid still staring at me?) They're telling me my house smells funny (I'm sure yours smells better, kid. Why don't you go back there?)

I haven't yelled at anyone. I haven't screamed into a pillow or anything, but it's a little jarring to go from a quiet place where we made playdates or took walks with my kids' friends, to this much less formal system. It reminds me of my childhood, and now I feel for the parents of the (wonderful) neighborhood where I grew up.

The thing is, they aren't bad kids. They're actually pretty good kids, and I like them. They aren't too rowdy most of the time, they haven't broken anything yet. The kid with the good nose and big mouth aside, they are mostly polite to me, and they include Ivy when they play. I want them here, because if they're here then Kezie isn't asking to go play at their houses, something she is not, for the most part, allowed to do. I don't even know the parents of most of these kids yet, and until I do I'm not sending my four year old to a stranger's house. So, I let them in, and give them snacks, and let them watch a movie if they want. But there are moments when I feel as though my house has become a zoo, and I'm trying to catch the elephants with the butterfly net, and I really, really appreciate all the parents who were parents to me.