Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Little Neighbors

Just so you, too, can share in the joy of meeting my little neighbors, albeit over cyberspace. I love these little ones. Their dad's description of them in a recent update, though, made me laugh out loud. Because it's all true.

We don't write much about our kids, which is probably for the best, since some of you still think we are normal. But I figured I would start this email out with some news about our girls. They are 3 and 1 and full of life. Tovah's first parent-teacher conference was to address her naked escape from school. She really likes school, and she really likes clothes, so we are hoping this was an isolated event.

Elami is not a child to be trifled with either. She wrestles with such ferocity that she totally takes out Tovah, the cat, and unsuspecting guests. She has also specialized in producing her own bath toys (to her delight and our horror). But they are well-cultured kids too: Tovah has perfected the craft of cutting newspapers into confetti. "Practicing cutting" she calls it. Lami, meanwhile, enjoys water-colors—not so much painting with them as eating them, particularly blue—it tastes almost as good as play-doh or cat food.

Tovah's hobbies include feeding the fish, mothering the reluctant area dogs, providing tough love and close supervision to the cat, and startling the cows with her aggressive enthusiasm to feed them. We will be astounded if Tovah does not become a vet (or a poacher).

Elami spends lots of time practicing her yelling, hitting things, and generally asserting herself. With her newfound mobility she is able to assert her self further afield and the cat seldom comes home anymore. She is also determined to operate the stove and to eat the cat's food.

We fear that our children do little to aid Africa's stability, but we think we've noticed a trend towards improved family-planning efforts since our arrival.


No, they're really not little monsters. Far from it. Here they are with their mom and me when we were in Kigali, en route to the Congo.

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