Rugrats

I've complained about the neighborhood kids to most people I know with ears. I can't remember if I've mentioned them on this blog yet. We live in a somewhat "colorful" neighborhood. You might call it "up and coming" or going through a revitalization. Emphasis on not there yet. There are a lot of kids who live on the block. Actually, I think the 10 or so I usually see/ hear reside in only two of the houses.

At any rate, from the day we moved in, they've been wanting to come over. At first it was to see the house, play in our backyard, and then, any reason to knock on the door. Once Nick even let them in to use our bathroom! (apparently their's was broken) I actually hide sometimes when I'm working from home when I see them approaching. It's not that I have anything against kids (ok, well, I'm getting better), it's just that these are the dirty kind whose parents never know where they are... SUCH a pet peeve of mine. If you have them, be responsible for them!

Since winter, the kids haven't wanted to come over as much. It's colder, and I told them they couldn't come over after dark. Then this morning I noticed this:

and remembered that someone whose name I'll not mention, but it happens to rhyme with "kick" taught the kids how to squeeze through the gate rods one day when we couldn't remember the combination lock to the door. Seems like they like to use that trick on days that we aren't home at all. It also looks like they have grown a lot over the holidays.

The funniest part about this is that the gate isn't even locked right now. Our house has some funny foundation issues which prevents us from using the front door. Since we have to go in and out the back door all the time, the lock is just hanging there and the gate can easily be opened.