The inconvenience of friendship

The hardest part about letting people in is that they now have an open door into your life.

I thought about this the other day as I entertained 4 out of the 5 kids who live next door. These kids are the loudest, most obnoxious kids in our whole neighborhood. They bicker constantly. One is whiny and instigates problems with her siblings. One is a bully to his younger siblings. One knows everything about everything. And one doesn’t speak a word because his siblings speak for him. These four kids range in age from 4 to 10, with an 18 m.o. brother at home, and are often left to their own devices – which usually is the reason for their bickering and screaming.

And I seriously adore these kids.

So when two of the kids playing outside asked if they could come over and hang out in my house, I…