Hi, I'm Mollie, Sarah and Ian's Mom

I've lived in the same neighborhood my whole life. When we were little kids, the entire neighborhood was full of old people. There was actually a neighbor that complained because I rode my Big Wheel on the sidewalk and it was "too loud". So, yeah, not a lot of neighborhood kids to play with. I remember going to my friend's neighborhood just to have kids to play with outside. Over the years, those old people all died and young families bought their houses. So now the street we live on has lots of little kids on it. It's strange to me to see little kids riding Big Wheels in the driveway of Old Man So-and-So's house or Mrs. Old Lady's yard now full of lawn toys.

My parents know all of their neighbors reasonably well, in that "borrow the rototiller" kind of way. But we have lived in our new house for almost two years now and I'm just getting around to interacting with some of our neighbors. I feel like I'm courting our neighbors but am that shy kid in middle school who hasn't actually bothered to pass a note to anyone in homeroom but is frustrated I'm not sitting at the lunch table with everyone else.

When we first moved to the new house we had a Nosey Neighbor Open House. It was a surprising success as all the folks on our street happily tromped through our new home to see what we'd done with it before we filled it with furniture. But then months went by and we forgot everyone's names and we'd just wave as we drove past but not much more.

We know the names of everyone's dogs and everyone's kids because that's what they yell out in the yard. But suddenly we're referring to folks as "Fido's Daddy" because we don't remember their names. I just learned two weeks ago that our neighbor's name is Brent and I've been referring to him as Arty for over a year because his license plate says something like that on it. He looks more like an Arty to me than a Brent anyways.

I know what I want, but I'm not sure how to get there. I'd like to have our neighbors over maybe twice a year or so for a social event. I'd like to be comfortable enough returning stray pets and kids back to their yards and having the same done for us. I'd like to actually know the names of everyone who lives on our street. I'd like to feel like we're part of a community and not just a bunch of strangers sharing a zip code.

But how do we go about getting there? I've found having a kid makes it a little easier. We suddenly got an invitation to a Christmas party last year from neighbors with a baby similar in age to Ian. And just last week I had a great afternoon sitting in my 90-year-old next door neighbor's yard watching her tenants plant pansies while we sat with the baby. So slowly but surely we're making inroads to a community. I'm a super friendly person and happy to help anyone that needs it. So this shouldn't be so hard for me. Maybe we should just have a yearly Nosey Neighbor Open House.

I'm also optimistic that if all these kids stick around, Ian may have some other kids on our street to play with. If nothing else, I know our 90-year-old neighbor is cool enough she won't complain about Ian's eventual Big Wheel.

Living Out Loud volume 16: The people in your neighborhood

It's been a rough couple of weeks in our neighborhood. Two of my parents' neighborhood friends have died, one after she got pneumonia that required a feeding tube that nicked an artery and another of brain cancer. Sad times all around as my parents' peers are dropping like proverbial flies. I have some great stories about both of these beloved neighbors but those will have to be blog posts of their own. For now, I wanted to ponder the significance of them being our neighbors. My mother always used to say that people who have good neighbors don't appreciate them. My parents had one atrocious neighbor who did everything from paint a keep off sign on the fence between them to hire men to climb on my mother's roof and cut down one of our trees because she didn't like it. She was, as they say, a piece of work.

We lived at our old house a mile from here for years and rarely talked to any of our neighbors. And now that we're in our new house I'd love to have a more close relationship with them, but am not really sure how to go about that. I hear about other people who have block parties and neighborhood cookouts and I can't help but feel a tinge of jealousy. Then again, our elderly dog Sarah fell in one of the footers for our deck this morning while I was in the shower and Rich was out walking our other dog and our neighbor jumped the fence to rescue her. So we're not doing so bad.

So I'm finally getting around to announcing our Living Out Loud project. I know it's the end of the month, but we've had a lot going on. I promise to be more organized going forward.

Tell us about your neighborhood, past, present or future. Do you like where you live now? Did you love your neighborhood as a kid? Can you even tell us the names of your neighbors or do you only know their dogs' and kids' names because that's what gets yelled out the back door? What is your ideal neighborhood, as far as communication with your neighbors, proximity to them and privacy? Do you have fences of both physical and non-physical variety that keep you from getting to know them? Do you even want to know them? How important is a neighborhood versus your actual dwelling itself?

Details include:

• Write something personal about yourself using the previous paragraphs as a guideline. Do not feel that you have to address each issue above. The spirit of this project is to share something about yourself; I'm just throwing out ideas.

• Once you have completed your entry and posted it, please email me the link at genie [at] inabottle [dot] org. Remember, if you don't email me, I'm likely to forget to include you in the recap!

• If you do not have a blog to host your story, you can email me the story directly and I will add it here as a guest post giving you credit. The more the merrier!

• The due date for entries is Sunday, May 9th (the second Sunday of the month) at 5pm Eastern. Note this is Mother's Day, so plan accordingly.

• Once I have collected all the entries, I will post a wrap-up to list them all and announce a winner. The winner will receive some sort of prize to be determined but all participants will receive fame and glory and a link on our Living Out Loud blogroll.

Out of the mouths of babes

I hadn't planned on being a lactivist this weekend. I just wanted to see a hockey game with my family and friends. Kevin, Jake and Tommy made an impromptu trip down to visit us this weekend and we headed out to the last game of the season for the Norfolk Admirals versus the Hershey Bears (the farm team for the Washington Capitals). We grabbed some local dinner and walked over to Scope to enjoy some family fun.

When the game started up, Ian did really well with the noise. But the first time there was a close goal and a loud groan from the crowd, he started to fuss in alarm. I dug through my jacket, sweatshirt, past the sling and under my tank top to wrestle out enough boob for him to latch on and console himself from the noise. He ate for a few minutes with a blanket over his head to block out the light and sound. Things were going well until the Admirals scored and there was a LOT of noise. That surprise was just a little more than he could bear and he started to cry. We put the boob away and took him out to get a fresh diaper and walk around in the quiet.

When first intermission started, I headed back towards the stands to look for Rich. As I headed to the door, a woman walked up to me and tapped me on the shoulder. She said, "Ma'am. I just want to thank you for ruining my evening by breastfeeding in public."

Now, had I been thinking fast, I would have countered, "Really? Cause that sweater you're wearing just ruined my evening." But what she said sounded so bizarre to me, I honestly thought she was joking until I saw her face. So I just turned around and walked inside in stunned silence.

And then I got mad. Stomach churning, hot face, lip-biting mad. I had actually assumed when she first walked up that she was going to complain that my baby cried and was ready to retort that he cried for about 10 seconds before I removed him from the area. But she was actually mad that I fed my baby under a blanket in the half full stands of an AHL hockey game. I was torn between tracking this woman down, unsure what I would even do once I found her but assuming most of it was illegal and trying to just move on. Moving on has never really been one of my strong points, though, so I was mostly just working on holding back tears.

I found Rich and told him about my encounter. We went back out so he could get peanuts for Tommy and eventually I saw the same woman walk past us. I walked up to her, tapped her on the shoulder and said "Ma'am, I'm not sure I understand. You said my breastfeeding upset you?" She ignored me and kept walking. When I followed up with, "oh you're not going to talk about it now." She yelled out, "don't touch me, lady!!" Realizing she was straight up crazy and I still had my baby in my arms, I decided to just walk away versus deal with her.

Rich watched all this with tight-lipped anger. Second period started and most folks walked back inside. I walked around with Ian and chatted with one of the police officers about his kids. After a bit, Rich came back out to check on us and noticed the lady was still walking around the lobby area. He said he'd be right back and I knew he was heading to confront her but figured I would just stay with the sleeping baby and let him take care of himself.

Rich approached her and, remembering her freaking out that I tapped her on the shoulder, decided not to touch her. He just said, "hey, since we're all just walking up to strangers and saying crazy stuff, do you mind telling me why ..." She started saying "you're not allowed to talk to me!" but Rich continued following her. When she realized he wasn't going to walk away from her, she - I shit you not - started yelling "FIRE!" over and over in the hockey arena. Rich asked the security guard next to them, "do you see any fire?" and she then shook her bottle of water in his face.

At that point, I watched and it was as if time got slower. I wondered if my husband was about to punch a woman and go to jail. I wished that we had taken a separate car from our friends so I'd be able to bail him out. But he surprised me (and this lady) by just looking her straight in the face and laughing. He said, "HAHA! That is fantastic. You have fucked up now." She turned to bolt back into the stands but he followed her. He went up to the guard and told them, "this woman just assaulted me and I want the cops. Now!" Ironically, the same cop I was chatting with earlier came back with four of his fellow officers along with the manager for the arena. Rich had followed her over to where her husband was sitting and introduced himself to the poor guy. This is when we discovered that she wasn't even in our section of seats. He came back out to me while Not Nice Lady had a long chat with a police officer about how assault works, the limitations on free speech and the laws protecting breastfeeding in public.

The silver lining to all of this was how we were treated by everyone but her. The police officers were nothing but understanding, the arena manager was apologetic, no one hassled me or my husband. Ian was still asleep in my arms, but one of the officers suggested we finish watching the game in the VIP lounge so there would be less noise and free snacks.

I was sitting at a table with Ian in the VIP lounge when he woke up all smiles. He started to "phbffft" at me, so I "phbffft"ed right back. The woman in the table next to us turned around with a funny look and the first thing I thought was, "oh for crying out loud, please do not give me a hard time for phbfffting with my son." But she then smiled and I think was just surprised at the noise since she hadn't noticed the baby before. I breathed a sigh of relief.

The best part to all of this was explaining to four-year-old Tommy why Aunt Genie and Uncle Richie weren't in the arena. There was some explanation that a Not Nice Lady had said mean things to Aunt Genie and Uncle Richie went to get help from the police. Tommy's comment was "words are not for hurting." Indeed. He apparently understands just fine. Perhaps he could have explained it to the Not Nice Lady in terms she could understand.

"The Not Nice Lady said mean things to Aunt Genie because she didn't understand that Genie was just trying to be nice to the baby ... Uncle Richie, do you want some of my water? I won't throw any on you like the Not Nice Lady did. You can just drink it ... What happened to the Not Nice Lady?"

"She had to talk to the police and have a sort of grown up time out."

"And they told her not to say mean things again because it hurts other people?"

"I'm sure they did, little guy."

P.S. If you'd like you can also read Rich's version of the evening.