La Gringa's little buddy

Hola!

Hey, look at my little buddy! Isn't he the cutest thing you ever saw? He smiles like this constantly. I feel honored. He likes to come upstairs and play on the terraza with boring old me.

Kinder was closed this week due to the Semana Santa week long holiday — Isn't that great? The teachers came back from strike just in time to take their week-long vacation! In all fairness, his Kinder teachers have not been on strike at all so they deserve their vacation.

Babysitter took her vacation this week, too, so here we are. I've never seen such an always happy, never bored, never complaining kid. The first morning, he sat at the table "reading" the newspaper for half an hour, slowly turning page by page until he went through the whole thing.

Looking around for something he could play with, all I could find was my ocean coral collection. Good choice. That kept him entertained for a long time as he arranged trails of coral slithering around the terraza. Most amazing, when he was finished playing with them, he picked up every single piece and put them back where they were without even being asked.


El Jefe was in town so I asked him to pulllleez buy a toy for him. He came home with this great little truck with multiple pieces to play with. It came with a driver, two shovels, a bucket, and some forms to make sand castles.

"Can I give it to him?! Can I?!" I called the boy and his eyes just about popped out of his head when he saw the multi-colored truck. Arexy's did, too. "Oooooh," he respectfully stared in wonder until I indicated that it was for him. Arexy wanted him to leave it here for the next day, but he was having none of that! It was going home with him, just in case we changed our minds.

Now here is a funny for you at my expense. He's four years old and he corrected my Spanish! I was asking him about Kinder (which is preschool for 4 and 5 year olds). He likes it because, he said, they give him a snack. Then he proudly told me that he has his own mochila (backpack). I know the word well, but my fuzzy mind was thinking 'mochilla'. So I asked him what he had in his "mo-chee-ya". He said, "mo-chee-LA!" Arexy and I both burst out laughing.

It was fun having this little guy around. He's welcome back anytime. I watched him leave today with his truck and parts in a big bag. The bag was almost as big as he was. He turned, waved, and said "Adios!" as he happily waddled away with his new truck.