Baby’s First Theft

We haven’t had a lot of firsts around here lately. But here’s a good one.

Down the block from us is a two flat dedicated to low income housing. It once boasted the honor of being the location of Evanston’s first murder in 10 years! But it’s really not that dangerous a place (I think the murderer lost his lease). There are just some folks down on their luck. A LOT of folks.

Whenever Grover escapes from our backyard to indulge in his wanderlust, he immediately bolts to this building. So every week or so, a gaggle of 5-10 girls will knock on our door to return our silly dog.

The other day, the gaggle was milling around outside our house and caught the attention of a naked Elijah.

He shouted through the window, “Hey! Hey girls! Do you want to play?”

They said yes, but I told them we’d have to do it another time, as it was bedtime and Eli was currently without clothes.

So yesterday, the gaggle returned to take Eli up on his offer. Diana, who knew nothing of the plan, said sure and led the 5-10 girls into the backyard to play.

After a while of playing, Diana could hear one of the girls say to Eli, “Ask your mom if we can play inside your house.”

Eli obliged and Diana reluctantly let the gaggle inside. Keeping track of two boys is hard enough. Adding in an uncountable crew of girls didn’t seem like that great of an idea.

At some point, a few of the gaggle peeled away upstairs to the boy’s room with cousin Rory. Oh yeah. My brother’s kids somehow got added to the equation.

In an effort to keep the now 500 kids on one floor, Diana walked upstairs. And found the gaggle emptying the contents of Eli’s piggy bank into their pockets. I shudder to think of the look on that dumb blue pig’s face as they violated him.

Diana simply said, “Out.”

And the gaggle complied.