February 24, 2006 - Friday
After the entire vacation week of looking out the front window to see if the new neighbor six-year-old was out playing, I finally took Harry and Jeremy across the street to meet Ian. I'd met his mother out when she was out walking and we'd agreed to try and get the two boys, so close in age, together during vacation week. But after almost a whole week of missing each other, we finally just went over and knocked on the door. Not surprisingly, Harry tried to chicken out at the last moment, even though he'd been saying all along that he wanted to meet the new kid. It's tough walking into a situation when you don't really know what to expect. It is for adults and it certainly is for children. Fortunately, it all worked out just great. Ian was home and he and Harry seemed to get along just great (and Jeremy was Jeremy, happy as a clam). They played inside for a while and then outside for a while as Ian's mom showed my around their lovely old farm house.

It's a good lesson: challenging one's fears. I asked Harry if he didn't think it worked out OK. He said "yes," of course, and agreed that if we did try, if we didn't convince our brains that there was really nothing to be afraid of except what we didn't know, they we would never have had fun today. Alas, it is a lesson that will almost certainly need to be re-enforced many times I'm sure.


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