This town is hosting their annual Easter Egg Hunt today and I thought about walking to the park to observe the festivities, but that thought didn’t last long. My nervous system can barely handle three screaming children, much less hundreds.

I have grown accustomed to the 3 children next door, all under the age of 10, but it’s a struggle to remember their names. The girl was easy because her name is Stephanie and there’s a neighbor down the street with the same name. The oldest nods his head at me with a grin, which means, ‘hello’, but I still can’t remember his name. The youngest, no more than 5 years old, is named Alister, but I call him Alador.

He wasn’t sure of the name in the beginning. I would see him and I’d say, “Hello Alador!”, and he’d squint his eyes and look at me inquisitively, not sure I was talking to him, but he never corrected me, so I continued with the name. I can never decipher a word this kid says. He’s so filled with life and sees everything as a surmountable adventure, so his voice is a high pitched squeal, and one continual run-on sentence.

He cries a lot and at first it was very startling, so the Mama in me would check to make sure there was no blood spewing from his head as he wailed his way back into his house. Then I realized he’s at that age of invincibility, so he gets hurt a lot!

This morning I stepped outside to sit for a moment on the back porch to greet the new day. A literal forest was knocked down to build the house next door, but the roots were still underground and found room to regrow between our two houses. The leaves are coming in, so the visibility is becoming sparse through the trees, but I had the feeling of being watched. Peering through the budding leaves, there was Alador, on his back stoop, staring right at me.

He began climbing all over the wrought iron railing and wanted to stand on it, but decided that wasn’t a good idea and climbed back down. I said, “Hello Alador!” and for the first time ever he responded, “Hi!”. I smiled and listened as he told me he was going to the Easter Egg Hunt and not wanting to thwart his excited I assured him that it would be fun.

A few minutes passed and his sister appeared to bring him back inside. I returned indoors to begin my day, but after closing the back door, I paused to peer through the pane glass windows. He hadn’t listened to his sister to come inside and stood there peering back at me. Looking at his solemn face I smiled and walked away with the thought, “Today is the day, you finally realized, your name is Alador.”

Feature Photo by TK on Unsplash