NIGHT GAMES! Games . . . at night

This is my front yard tonight. It looks like an untidy garage sale for bikes, and none of them belong to my children.

There are screams, yells, and squeals of pants-wetting delight well after 10pm, but no one in the neighborhood is calling the cops. Bless them!

This happens a few times each week, as soon as the temperatures warm up. Twenty+ kids are running around our and our neighbor’s yards.

It’s Night Games!

Uhh . . . that's not quite right . . .

. . . There we go! Stock photo of kids running madly as it grows darker!

The children range in my yard age from 4 to 15, both boys and girls. The older kids generously let little sisters pretend they broke through the lines of teenage boys gripping each other for “Red Rover.” Then there’s a heart-stopping round of “Hide and Seek.” Well, my heart stops because kids are running full speed towards my beloved 15-passenger van, and I’m torn between what would upset me more: a bruised child or another dent in my Big Blue.

“Ghost in the Graveyard” provokes some arguments, but I never get involved. I sit in the house with the windows opened listening to the activity. No adults ever supervise. It’s never occurred to any of us parents that we should. We keep band-aids on hand, a wet washcloth for the inevitable head-on in-the-dark collision, but otherwise, the kids negotiate, play, dare, hide in my recycling bin (wait—how’d he get in there? How will he get out?!), run, laugh and act like kids.

I love, love my neighborhood that not only allows this, but happily sends their kids to join ours.

We didn’t set a “play date” for this. The kids make some phone calls, run around knocking on doors, then around 9pm a small hoard has gathered in our yard.

No one wears helmets, although they probably should.

And the only lights on are the street lights a few houses down. The kids even get upset if there’s too much moonlight. The darkness adds to the tension, the excitement, the danger. And no—no one’s ever had a broken bone or needed stitches. (There’s probably been a bit of brain damage, but that will just make all of these kids more interesting as adults.)

This is childhood at its purest and finest! And even when I’m an old grandmother, I’ll let the neighborhood kids play Night Games in my yard. I may be the only one, but I’ll defend the children’s rights to be children for as long as I can.

No, not me in 40 years . . .

 . . . that'll be me, keeping it green for the youngsters!