So I got home from the gym this afternoon to find my backyard full of little girls. 
And Sam, too, of course (Gabe was inside with Eric). They were just having fun, playing around, and I kept one eye on them while Eric got ready and left for his own turn at the gym. (Ah, Sundays.)
Around 4:30, there was banging at the door. One of the little girls was wailing hysterically, clutching her eye. Apparently, there were a couple of little boys in the yard that backs onto ours, and a “war” was declared, involving things being tossed over the fence. This little girl got pegged in the face. 
I gave her an ice pack, and when she calmed down slightly, I sent her straight home with it (she lives across the street from us, or I’d have walked with her; as it was, she was followed by the herd of girls), and I got what I thought was the rest of the story from Sam. I couldn’t ascertain whether the throwing in our direction had been malicious or not, but it seemed a possibility, so I figured that parental involvement was unavoidable. The herd of girls, minus the injured party, returned, and we all set out. On the way, I made it crystal clear to all of them that this was not about “bad boys who hurt innocent girls.” This was about somebody getting hurt in a “game” that nobody should have been playing, and parents needing to be aware of the situation. They knew I’d be talking to their parents as well, but they were okay with that.
The two boys were waiting in front of their house, and they knew why I was there and immediately began trying to stop me. Honestly, the moment I realized which boy it was, I wanted to stop! I’d talked to this boy before, and he seemed like a really nice kid with some extremely strict grandparents who were likely to be swift with the punishment. I tried to console him, saying I wasn’t going to pin any sort of blame on him…and then the choice of whether to talk got taken out of my hands when the grandma came out on the front porch.
He wasn’t wrong. Halfway through that “conversation,” I was wishing I had stayed home. Let’s just say that even Gabe was looking appalled by the end of it. I was nearly in tears, myself.
Afterward, shaken, we went on to the other boy’s house, and then to the girls’ houses. (In for a penny, in for a pound, and I still held firm to not wanting to show partiality to the kids who had happened to be on my side of the fence.) I don’t know why I assumed everybody would be in our immediate neighborhood, but I should have checked that before hustling out the door with heeled boots on my feet and Gabe in tow; the final child lived over half a mile away, and it was quite dark by the time we got there. Thank God, there were no further fireworks at anybody else’s house. The other parents seemed glad to be informed (after all, you never know when parents of an injured child might turn around and decide to get all lawyery on everybody), but to have the incident in perspective: kids throw things, and kids act without thinking.
My feet hurt, and I’m tired. I wish I cared less sometimes.
