The First Walk

Last night after dinner, we took Zoe for her first walk in the neighborhood.

First stop was at our neighbor's across the street, so that he could meet Zoe. This neighbor has been here ever since Lisa and I moved in more than three years ago, and he's very nice. He keeps his yard very nice, and he washes his car on a weekly basis in his driveway. And he saw Kaitlyn and me walking Hope last week and stopped, in his car, to ask about the baby. So why do I keep referring to this pleasant neighbor in third person? It's because we can't remember his name for the life of us! I think it's "Edward," but I'm not even that confident to say it to his face. Lisa refers to him as "Eugene," though we're near 100% certain that isn't his name; rather, it's the name of a former resident of our house whose mail we occasionally receive. (Eugene Compton, please give your forwarding address to the Post Office.) As if straight out of any episode of Seinfeld, when the Zoe-neighbor meeting actually occurred last night, none of us used proper names whatsoever, other than referring to Zoe as "Zoe." The neighbor kept referring to Lisa as "Mom"--appropriate, but an obvious cover for his not remembering her name. He never said my name, nor I his. And all this as I was telling him how much we'd be missing him soon, as he moving to Wylie. That is, we'll actually be missing a neighbor whose name we do not know. Classic.

After that stop, we proceeded down the street toward University, while Hope tried to figure out whether the stroller was ever going to "get" her or just playfully annoy her. We always cross University when proceeding on our walks with Hope, but I guess our parental instincts kicked in this time, and we decided not to cross a major street on our first walk with our first-born.

The walk was cut short when I felt a drop of rain, and we walked a bit more briskly back home. It did rain later that night, but we missed any dramatic downpour. Zoe missed the entire walk, of course, as she was fast asleep.