"Suffer the little children..."

Well, I’ve now had the dubious pleasure of meeting my Inukshuk builders, and I must say it has been a very trying experience. I was wrong to assign deep, heartfelt meaning to their project, but I was right when I wrote that it’s all about them. They are, after all, only young children—young children, roaming the backyards of the neighborhood without parental supervision.

In the last three days we’ve been visited on at least eight separate occasions by four-year-old Lina (or Lena) who lives in the townhouse at the end of the row facing ours across the backyard. It’s the house with the child-sized plastic furniture scattered about the lawn at all angles. Lina is a very pretty little girl, with shoulder-length straight dark brown hair, and big brown eyes surrounded by black lashes. On the first visit, a boy with blue eyes and light brown hair in a mushroom cut accompanied Lina. I’d say he was also four, maybe five. The big attraction at our place? I let the cats out on their leashes. The boy, whose name I didn’t catch, has his own cat at home; Lina does not have a kitty or a puppy. Lina found Darth and Curli fascinating, yet unnerving. She’s let out a little shriek when they moved too near. Remember that phrase in “The Highwayman,” the one that asserts “the hours crawled by like years”? Well, in this case the minutes crawled by like years. For all intents and purposes, I became a broken record: “Don’t pull the grass. Don’t put stones on the grass; put them back where you found them. Don’t dump gravel on the cats. Don’t, don’t, DON'T!”

Too bad little Lina overcame her fear of animals so quickly. She appeared on our deck again the next day. It took me a while to figure out that someone was ringing the doorbell at the back door. Lina wanted to play with the kitties. I told her the kitties were busy. I asked her where all her friends were. They’d gone away. I asked if she had any brothers and sisters. She said she had a baby sister. She was silent for a moment and then added that she had a little brother, too, and that’s why her mom was feeling ill (!). Lina had in her hand a rusty screw, which she proceeded to poke into our screen door until I sternly commanded her to stop it. She made her way reluctantly home. She returned that evening, when James was outdoors with the cats, so I left it to him to deal with her.

Don’t you think that like the proverbial cat, Lina was back the next day, dragging her little brother with her. His name, if I understood correctly, is Falas. I was prepared to ignore the doorbell, but Falas arrived wielding a baseball bat (plastic, fortunately), which he was using to tap at the patio windows—presumably to get the cats’ attention. (He doesn’t look old enough for deliberate vandalism.) Once again my refrain of “Don’t” filled the air: “Don’t hit the window, don’t pull my grass, don’t pull the neighbor’s grass.” I repeatedly interjected “Go play in your own yard" with increasing frequency.

Yesterday evening I relented. I got to thinking that perhaps I hadn’t been modeling Christ-like, neighborly love as I should be. (What can I say, I had a weak moment.) I let Lina hang out with the cats, although I closely supervised the event. As principal tour guide of the Chychota Petting Zoo, my role consisted of:

• praising Lina for being gentle with the cats;
• convincing her that our cats eat only special cat food, not grass or gravel;
• suggesting that sticking a paint brush in a cat’s ear (or other orifices, for that matter) is inadvisable;
• discouraging her from trying to “pet the cat’s ‘booby things’” (i.e., Curli’s nipples);
• emphasizing our cats were unused to children and therefore shy and needed space (in response to which she promptly climbed up the stairs and parked herself in front of the patio door, announcing, “I’m giving her space”; that was actually kinda’ cute);
• and stressing in no uncertain terms that the inside of our house is off limits to her. (And believe me, I was stressing by that time!)

I can’t remember the last time I looked forward with such relish to a forecast calling for showers.

Alas, Ottawa’s weather is so unpredictable. In-between morning and afternoon showers, the sun shone upon the two small children who made their way up our deck stairs. I ignored the doorbell, hoping they’d go away. I peeked out to see they had plunked themselves on our lawn and were digging around in our gravel patch again. I chased them away.

That was not the end of it: Lina returned on her own twice this evening. That’s eleven visits to date! Jesus’s words, “Suffer the little children to come to me,” keep going through my head. I know the word translated as “suffer” in that sense means “allow, permit,” but the contemporary meaning of “bear with patiently; endure” seems a better fit in this case. Yea, verily, I am suffering.

I want to know, where are these children’s parents? What are they thinking? Do they know their children are making/would make themselves at home anywhere they please? Multiple times a day? Are they not concerned about what kind of people their neighbors might be? I mean, I’m not going to harm their kids, but what about the next guy? Where are the boundaries? Please, show some “tough love,” people. Something's got to give. If it doesn't, I'll have to schedule a little visit with Lina's mommy and daddy.