One of the luckiest things you can have happen to you as a kid is to have fun neighbors your age. No playdates or transportation to arrange - just come on over! We got a tiny thrill when we saw this intentional hole in Claire's (aka Loobylu) fence. "Now the kids next door suddenly appear at my elbow while we are at the dinner table."
Claire's found that giving her kids and the neighbors easy access to each other has given her some free time and we remember from our own childhoods how nice it is to feel at home in neighbors' houses (especially if their mother bakes).
How do you open your home to neighbors?
You can visit Claire at her excellent blog, Loobylu.
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I grew up in New Hampshire, where it snows alot. My dad and our neighbor's dad used to snowplow a path between the house. When I was very little the top of the snow on either side of the path would come about up to my eyebrows.
view meghanml's profile
We used to have a ladder on both sides of our fence and the neighbors in the cul-de-sac behind us. It would take us ten minutes or more to walk to their house if we went on the side walks since our houses were in the middle of opposite sides of the block. Climbing over just made life easier, as well as more fun.
If only we all had such fabulous neighbors!
view racheloncegentry's profile
We are lucky enough that our neighbors behind us have 2 small kids. There is only an alley that separates our backyards.
view kpag's profile
I've bridges build over taller fences and step stools on either side of shorter ones. The best though were neighbors in my aunt's development who rigged two above-ground pool ladders for their kids
view Enamorada's profile
When a hurricane blew down the fence between our yard and our neighbors' growing up, to keep us kids from climbing over the fence (we used the dog house, our neighbors used their boat), the dads installed a gate so we could go back and forth between our yards and our pools. We loved having that gate!
view tgray99's profile