July 31, 2009

Back to the Country


The girls and I just returned from a visit with THEIR life long friends. I love that they both have friends they have known since birth. Unfortunately they are a military family and so move a lot. For this year and a few more years they are four hours away and coordinating schedules seems to be as bad as pulling teeth.


BUT...We did it and this years get together was GREAT!


Lara especially was in her glory. An actual GIRLFRIEND to share clothes with, play Polly pockets, and ride up and down the street on their bikes with.


That part was bitter sweet. You see I grew up in the suburbs and riding my bike everywhere and nowhere was part of daily life. So it was great for Lara to have a street to ride on that was not a dirt road or a highway. I was happy for her but sad because I know that is something she longs for.


She asks me all the time if she can ride her bike somewhere and visit someone but that just is not a possibility where we live. We don't live on a back country road. We live in the country yes, but just off an 80km/h through way to the next town :(



So as much as I'm glad to be back in our own home today I am sad. Sad that their best friends are so far away. Sad that my kids don't have a paved driveway to play chalk on or skip rope. Sad they don't have friends to visit or a place to ride their bikes.


Anyone have a few thousand dollars so we can pave our driveway and create a bike path into the fields??

That is what I thought. I guess Lara will just have to anticipate the day her grandpa builds a new barn, buys her a horse and her best friend can come over here and ride horses with her into the fields.

Oh I hope she grows up to be Proud to be Country...I hope all my children see the positives and not what is lacking.


I hope I do as well.

1 comment:

Nancy said...

Forgive another "when I was a little girl" thing - anyway, when I was a kid there in the 50's, the road was a lot better for biking, (i.e. quieter) except that it was gravel (and I always wished for pavement). Cars didn't seem to drive as fast then (they were, after all, '40's and '50's cars!) We knew most of the people driving by. If we didn't know who it was, we gawked and tried to figure out who it could be. The road was a true narrow country road, lined with trees that had sheltering branches overhead. On hot lazy summer days we could ride our bikes along the road, checking the ditches for anything interesting and wishing we had a pool to swim in!