I was just telling my kids about the “good ole days” when we used to show up to our friends’ houses unexpected and just hang out.

This concept mystifies modern children, who have everything scheduled for them. Playdates, soccer practice, ballet, piano lessons, dance recitals, lunchtime, pee breaks… everything has become all about planning and zoning social interactions. Even families like mine, who homeschool and try to keep a stronger sense of connection alive are beholden to this insanity because nearly everyone is obsessively attached with this overplanning and overscheduling.

So I was thrilled when an unexpected guest knocked at our side door. I looked up to find a grey tree frog stuck to the window plating, just waiting to be heard.

He was very polite. Not too loud. Not in a hurry. He was happy to hang out with me and the kids for a few minutes. We haven’t seen a gray treefrog in our backyard in about five years. It had been so long I wondered what happened in our neighborhood to drive them away.

Our guest’s visit thrilled us all. We wanted him to be happy, so we took him to a more comfortable place to sit. We have some great trees in our backyard. It’s like a forest out there, the last piece of it left in our neighborhood.

I have to fight invasive honeysuckle, and we have a couple of trees that are dying and need to be replaced (I love my trees dearly). We still have to pull poison ivy despite having spent years removing patches of it and even hiring the Midwest’s only poison ivy control service.

A wild life isn’t easy. But it brings about some of the best visitors. Each little wild friend enriches our lives and we look forward to these special adventures.

I hope this guest has a big family, and we get to meet all of them.