As I write this we are still with our daughter, Catherine, and her family in Santiago. During summertime in Chile we can do most of our living outdoors — or at least with all the windows wide open. Bird chatter is almost 24/7; one day a bird flew into the house — fortunately it found its way out after less than two minutes. Catherine said that was a first for them. It caused quite a sensation.
One of our favorite games is Children’s Sequence. The goal is to be the first to get four of your pieces in a row. Then you say “Sequence!” One morning at breakfast, Priscilla, 6, said with great joy, “Sequence!” In her bowl of oatmeal, she had four raisins lined up in a row!
Beauty and the Beast — Priscilla is always Belle and Oliver is Gaston and the Beast — is Priscilla’s and Oliver’s most frequent make-believe. The next most frequent make-believe is “family.” The other day they came to me and said they were going to have a baby. Priscilla had a doll under her dress. Later they showed up with the doll. “Our baby hatched!” Oliver said.
We went to Pucon, Chile, Jan. 6-9 for the Half Ironman (70.3-mile triathlon) that Diego was competing in. On the plane I sat by Oliver, who was beside the window. Before takeoff he was playing with the window shade — moving it up and down. I asked him if he liked sitting by the window. “Yes!” he said as he pushed the shade down. “When we get to Planet Earth I can open it up!”
Baseball with their Grandpa Terry is one of Priscilla’s and Oliver’s favorite things to do outdoors. When Oliver, 4, was with his cousin Felipito, 8, in Pucon I overheard him say very seriously, “Do you know how to say baseball in Spanish … It’s base ball.” (He said it very slowly.) Felipito speaks both English and Spanish.
With 2,200 Half Ironman competitors certain areas on the day of the race were very, very crowded. Eva, wife of Diego’s brother, Felipe, wrote her phone number on the forearm of each child. She does that whenever there is a chance a child might get separated from the family. I smiled when I spotted Felipito pretending to make a call using his forearm as a phone.
Following our return flight to Santiago, on the bus from the airport to the parking lot, Oliver saw a man in uniform and said, softly, “Hi, policeman.” Catherine corrected him, softly, saying that it was not a policeman, it was a pilot. “Why would a pilot ride a bus?” Oliver asked. Catherine said the pilot has to take a bus to his car to drive home to sleep. Oliver said he thought pilots slept on the plane.
Teresa, 4, was beginning to learn the song “Old McDonald Had a Farm.” She got through it just great until she started naming some exotic animals. Then would sing, “With an ‘I-don’t-know here’ and an ‘I-don’t-know there …’” — Vi Wysong (grandmother of Teresa) of Wawaka
Henry, 6, proclaimed, loudly: “I love Mexican food!”
“Since when?” his mother asked. “What’s your favorite Mexican food?”
“French fries,” Henry replied.
“In Henry’s defense they do serve French fries at the Mexican restaurant we go to,” his mother, Erin Raatz, said.
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