First.Blog.Ever.

As the title says, this is my first blog ever. Not just on blogger.com, but ever on the internet. And I'm too lazy and/or busy to keep a journal on paper, so why on earth would I be creating a blog for the world to see (you may wonder)? Yes, I have ulterior motives. More on that later. Anyhow, I really do enjoy writing, and since typing is not laborious for me as is pen-and-paper writing, I think it will be a pleasure for me to write my thoughts out.

So here's a story for today's entry - My four-year-old daughter, Sojie, and the neighbor girl (age 5, unless she's mistaken or lying, about which I have my suspicions) have struck up an over-the-fence friendship. It started when the neighbor girl got a plastic two-story playground thingy to play on in her yard and she became able to peer over our 6 foot fence and into our back yard. She began hollering at Sojie one day, and that was all it took. I love how easy it is for kids to make friends. Sojie is gregarious, so it didn't take much for her to establish a solid over-the-fence relationship. Whenever one of them hopes to connect with the other, she hollers "LITTLE GIIIIIIRL!" from her respective side of the fence, and the other little girl runs out to talk with her. Even after learning each other's names, that's still how they arrange their over-the-fence play dates. I wasn't watching things too closely - busy with laundry or whatever - so I'm not sure how the whole gift exchange thing between them developed, but one day Sojie started running in with all kinds of new (to her) toys from Little Girl: a castle for tiny dolls, a big plastic purple horse with legs that move, a hair band, and I forget what else, but like 6 things a day. I didn't want it all to be one-sided, so I picked out some of Sojie's things to send over to Little Girl: a bracelet, a little tree house for tiny dolls, special colorful pencils taken out of our prize box, and I forget what else. About the third day of this gift-fest, Sojie ran in with some items that I considered less desirable - two mismatched socks and a pair of women's underwear. Little girl had crossed an unspoken line. We don't really know the neighbors, beyond a wave and a hello. Certainly not well enough for exchange of intimate apparel, even if it hadn't been gently used. I bagged up the latest gift and had Sojie return it. Little Girl insisted that it was for me - for Sojie's mom - and tried to give it again. I decided this was going to require adult intervention, so I came out and asked her if her parents knew she was giving away so many things. She assured me that they did. Then I let her know that I have lots of underwear, and she should not be throwing over her mom's things for me. Happily, both little girls seem to be done with the gift exchange phase, and now keep their interaction limited to hollered conversation. Although I did recently find some green onions that Little Girl pulled up out of her folks' garden and threw over the fence for Maggie, our dog.