Our closet grandparents are roughly 3 hours away. We see them as much as we can, and they come to our house often.
But, my child isn’t missing out by not growing up in the same town as my parents.
Don’t take this the wrong way Mom, you’re amazing and my kid loves you … please finish this post before you text me.
The reason he isn’t missing out is because we live in a very neighbor / community friendly area.
I heard from early on in my life (I’m a North LA gal) that if you made friends with a Cajun, you’d have a friend for life. If you ticked one off … well that friendship was over.
So, to our benefit, we have spent most of our married life in Cajun land.
The land of surrogate aunts, uncles, and grandparents.
My child loves (and sometimes I feel love isn’t a strong enough word) our neighbors. If they are home, he takes off to their houses to play and raid their snacks. One of the first names he said was our next-door-neighbor’s name.
There’s one couple who actually has children our age, that we are friends with, who have basically adopted us. They’ve babysat my son at times and whenever we have a chance, we visit their home, and our kiddo is as happy as a clam.
It doesn’t hurt that we are very involved in our church, and church family can often be much like your own blood related people.
My child has speech twice a week, and I am unable to take him and my husband can only take him one day. Guess who helps? A lovely church / work friend of ours.
I’m not naive though. If we lived other places, this wouldn’t be the case. Heck, we’ve lived other places and this wasn’t the case. I have never known my neighbors the way I know them in New Iberia.
I know I mentioned it before, but my parents are 3 hours away, and well, we are also pregnant. For a hot minute, I panicked about going into labor … what would we do with our firstborn? My husband quickly pointed out that we could have our neighbors on standby to watch until my parents make it into town.
Oh yeah, why didn’t I think of that?
Because it probably wouldn’t be the case elsewhere.
It’s not lost on me just how wonderful the community atmosphere in Acadiana is. Everything about this place revolves around taking care of others and loving your neighbor.
