Leaving Home So Soon?

My oldest son no longer wants to spend any time with me. I didn't think this was going to happen until he was at least 10, or maybe even 12. But nope, at seven he's decided that I am no longer cool. There is a group of kids up the street who are all his age or one year older, and they are way more fun than mom and little brother. His disappearance down the street started with his kindergarten girlfriend. ("Maa-ummm," I can hear him say, "she's just my friend now.") He begged me to let him go to her house and I finally relented, opening up a pandora's box of sorts. We live on a court that is on one end of a long street containing several other courts. Because the other courts are only on one side and the feeder street comes to a dead end, you can bike along the sidewalk for several "blocks" without ever having to cross a street. Remember as a kid when mom said, "Go as far as you can before you get to the corner"? Well, that takes a while in our neighborhood. And I figured what the heck, he should be okay as long as he doesn't have to cross the street. So I let him go. And he discovered that the boy next door to his "girlfriend" was pretty cool. As was the boy next to him. And the boy next to him. And the boy two houses in the other direction. Now he never wants to stay home. There are kids down in our court, but he doesn't like them nearly as much. (And there is some drama there that I won't get into on my blog.) So off he goes, riding his bike into the sunset at every possible opportunity. Occasionally the boys will make their way back to our house and look for frogs in the backyard, but it is much cooler to hang out at the other end of the street. To be honest, I am a little jealous. The parents down there seem like a lot of fun, but it's not like I can just ride my bike down there, ring the doorbell and say, "Hey, you wanna play?" Life is much simpler when you're seven. And you have an outgoing personality like my son and not a hermit-like personality. Like me.