What I did on my summer vacation: part 1 - Josh

Running across the lawns to see the best friend - watching next door to see when the playmate there is around, playing on the grass, riding bikes on the sidewalks, going to the Hokey pool - all this is stuff I did probably 40 ... yeah, I said forty!... years ago and Josh is now doing the same stuff at the same houses ( the kids aren't related to my playmates) but he's having a blast introducing himself around the neighborhood while we're here with my sister and our parents are on a tour of Spain and Portugal.
The kid next door he's known awhile and always looks forward to seeing him when we're here. The first afternoon and morning we were here he kept asking about him, until we spotted a boy down through the yards at the same house where my best friend used to live and he went down there and started playing. He's there during the days with his grandparents and little sister and he and Josh get along well. The grandparents are nice, great to talk to and I think it's a good thing for us to have something to do since Andie's hypersensitive to noises and Josh has no volume control so it gives her a break to have some quiet or to do her speech therapy homework and to not have to be surrounded by noise all day.
I keep thinking about how cool it is that when I was little I did pretty much the same stuff Josh and friends are doing now. Well, except we had alot less parental supervision, no battery powered, ride - on vehicles and simpler toys. Uh, catching lightning bugs, wiffle ball, and flashlight tag (this was pre lazer tag) were the big activities back in the day. Oh and walking around in the puddles after rain storms. Today I had a flash back while walking Josh around the block about the one girl that lived down the street who used to eat catfood and brag about liking it. Sometimes I wonder what happened to some of these people. As we walked this morning Josh saw a mom bringing her toddler daughter outside and was like "do you have any boys??"!!! I explained that he's looking for more kids to get together to play.