Spied out the window...

What in the heck?

 Lack of acreage doesn't keep these kids down...

This is what they were playing:

A rousing Thursday afternoon game of Follow the Leader on top of the wall -- with a broom.

Cathy (the leader, of course), Anna, William, and Gabe (bringing up the rear with the broom)

Am I worried about them falling off?  Not much.  Maybe a little.  But, no, not much.  These are country kids and I've watched as they climbed sky-scraper-height trees and scaled rock cliffs.  I figure country kids not only have especially well-honed romping and roaming skills, but their Guardian Angels have learned to be particularly quick on the fly.

And there's this:  Parents have to make judgment calls about safety all the time. It's an important part of our job, perhaps the most important part.  And, to make it all more fun,  the rules change constantly -- as the times change, as the places change, as the children change, as the parents change...  And sometimes you just have to choose what is the greater worry.

When I was a kid, my mom let us kids walk several blocks to school alone (when my brother and I were only six and seven years old!), but we couldn't play anywhere that wasn't within earshot of my mother's voice, and we were never allowed to play inside any little friend's house without specific permission.  It was a comfort zone thing for my Mom.

Fast forward several decades; Dan and I are making safety decisions for our family in the beginning of the twenty-first century now.  Times are definitely scarier, but having always lived in the country, we've felt pretty safe.  We let the kids walk the service roads around the cornfields near our house and explore the nearby meadows, but never alone. And we always required 'touchback' times, requiring to know when the children were going to be home from whatever wandering they were doing. That has been our comfort zone. Perhaps a somewhat loose one for this day and age, actually.

 But, things have changed.  Now, living in the suburbs of "Sin City," we're forced to be on track with the rest of the dangerous world and its worries. Las Vegas is a big city and the suburb where we now live is packed with people we don't know. For their safety, we don't allow the children play in the front yard by themselves and would never let them walk down the street to the park without an adult.  But if they wanted to do cartwheels on that wall in the backyard, I just might let them! Seems like very little risk, relatively speaking.  And kids still gotta be kids. Crazy comfort zone this time and place, eh Guardian Angels?  (Are y'all ready for swimming pool season?)