Neighbors

I need some advice. Tess has never had neighbor children to play with before, she's always gone alone into our yard and played just fine on her own (if a little lonely).

She's been over at the neighbors' two doors down all. day. Seriously, from like 11:30a -- when I walked her down there to ask if their 6 year-old could play -- with a break for lunch at 12:30p (she came over to ask if she could have pizza with them, they'd invited her but I'd already made her a grilled cheese sandwich at her request...she ended up eating that AND pizza!), to a visit from a bunch of neighborhood kids to OUR house for about a half an hour at 4p, until she FINALLY came home ("just for bug spray, mom! I'm going back over there!") where I insisted she stay home for dinner (with a little bit of questioning, it seems *they* were eating dinner, so I kept her home).

I've spoken to the mom on a number of occasions this week, she's super-friendly and works outside on their home a lot. This weekend she and her husband were working outside all day, replacing wood frames and staining wood around their house. They were totally cool with Tess being over there all day (I went over at 3p when Ben woke up from a nap to check on her).

Apparently they had *another* neighbor girl over to watch their kids (they have a 6 year old and a 4 year old), so essentially I had free babysitting all day. E thinks we should offer to pay, I'm thinking the 12 year-old was more of a mother's helper while the parents worked around the house.

I'm all for asking, I'm just not sure how cool it is to have Tess over there all day. She goes in the evenings after school, too.

Anyway, this is a new issue for me. I'm happy to have kids over here, we just don't have the super-cool playset up (and won't, until next spring).

Tess goes to her Baba's tomorrow, then we have friends over who are leaving for Colorado (sniff), so she'll be distracted.

These gorgeous photos are distracting me right now. After E being gone all day at ANOTHER tennis tournament (last one this season, so help me God), I'm happy to surf the net for the rest of the evening.