Welcome to the Neighborhood...I Think?

It all started when Merrit and I stopped by a neighbor's house on our way back from Tesco's (grocery store) to see if the neighbor-boy would like to come out and have an ice cream cone. Well, he wasn't home but his mom said, "The next time he's out playing with the boys in the neighborhood, I'll have him come 'round and ask Merrit to play out."

A couple of days later, there's a knock at the door. Five boys are standing there, scooters piled up in the walkway behind them. We recognized two from Merrit's school, but the other three were new to us.

Let's meet the little hoodlums...

...Playing in the street.

...Making a wet mess of our back garden.

...Eating all our food.

I'm only kidding. They're good kids. Mostly. :) 
Since I'm recapping with the benefit of hindsight (sometimes getting behind in your blogging has advantages, I guess), I can say that meeting the neighborhood kids has been a good thing, overall, but that it's definitely led to some tough lessons for Merrit. Tough for him--and tough for us to watch--but important for him to go through.

We can probably chalk up a good bit of what's gone on to Merrit being the "new kid," and a naive homeschooled kid at that. He let the bigger kids trap him in a box, let them close him up in a shed, and convinced him to be the one to climb up on top of the rubbish bins and over our garden wall after all the boys had clearly been told that it wasn't allowed. 
Mike and I have had to talk to Merrit about how to stand up for himself, about not "going with the crowd," and about why he needs to always do what he knows is right--whether he's been told something's wrong or whether the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit in his heart whispers to him that something's wrong, or if there's a chance that someone could get hurt. We gave him a few stand-by phrases to have in his hip pocket, like:
"Hey Merrit, why don't you get in the box."
"YOU get in the box."
:) We can laugh about it now. Over the last couple of weeks, Merrit has stood up to the kids and told them off a bit, and has maybe now gained a little street cred.