Needed: lots of cheap rugs

Our downstairs neighbors complained to us today. We have a second-floor apartment, hardwood floors, two kids, and young, unemployed child-free downstairs neighbors who like to sleep in. It's a recipe for disaster.

I'm entirely sympathetic to their unhappiness. Years of living on both the first and second floors of older apartment buildings have taught me that even normal, shoe-less, calm, adult-style walking around can sound like insane clog-dancing from below in apartments with hardwood floors. Even the cats who lived upstairs from us in one apartment sounded like a team of sumo wrestlers running relay races in the middle of the night. Toddler-style pounding around at 5AM is totally crappy. Because of this, we are constantly working on both kids to not run, not stomp, not bang on the floor, not drop stuff, not yell, etc. I feel like I'm saying "shh" about half the time I open my mouth. The Radio Flyer cannot be deployed until after 10 AM. Nobody wears shoes in the apartment. Clearly, it's not enough.

Cook and I are both the sort of people who absolutely loathe confrontation and criticism in any form,* and being informed (fairly nicely) that we are a problem makes us feel really sick and terrible. Some part of me feels sort of annoyed - we really are making a fairly significant and continual effort to avoid noise-torture of our neighbors, and there's only so much we can do. Part of me admits that if I were young and childless and being woken up at 5 AM by the upstairs kids, I would be pretty bummed. I would not complain, though - I think even Young and Childless Me knew that there's a limit to how much quiet can be required of kids, and of course she hated confrontation, too.

Anyway, we'll get some more rugs and stuff, but I am worried that we have a bigger problem. Maybe Young, Childless, Unemployed, Sleeping-In Neighbors don't have experience with hardwood floors, or maybe they don't have experience with kids, but I suspect that they don't realize the limits of what we can do without cutting off Skipper's feet.

*Just like Dutch...