Playing Grown Up

Every once in a while I take a look around and wonder what on earth I am doing where I am. Mainly it happens when I get an invitation in the mail to another friend's wedding or a birth announcement. And then, in my shock, I yell at the empty room, "We are too young to be getting married and having babies! WE ARE NOT READY!!" And then I think to myself, "Correction: I am not ready (but then CLEARLY neither is anyone else!)"

And then sometimes my head starts spinning at the amount of responsibility I'm entrusted with at work and I begin to feel an awkward sense of importance. Like today, I interviewed a candidate for the center director position who just resigned as a high school Spanish teacher. Hellooooo! I interviewed a high school teacher, who is in the same ranks with my former teachers, who if I ran into on the street today I would still address as Mr. Heup or Mrs. Baldikoski!

Not to worry, the sense of importance is never inflated because usually I am humbled by other moments. Like falling down the stairs as I dole out parenting advise, or making the parent of a child with severe allergy go through all the rig-a-marole of paperwork, legal documentation, and one-on-one training of epi-pen procedures with the WRONG teacher, etc.

It is nice to know, however, that I am not alone. I caught up with a friend this weekend who started medical school 6 weeks ago. Their first role play was doing patient interviews to gather preliminary information. The instructor went around the room to each student with a certain case and the student was to ask the right questions to gather all the necessary info. After all these vanilla cases (I have a sore throat, there's a floater in my eye, etc) he got to my friend. When she asked what brought him in today, he said, "It hurts when I go to the bathroom." And my sweet, ridiculously intelligent, aspiring-doctor friend burst out laughing. And as soon as she had stifled her giggles she said to herself, "I am too immature to be a doctor."

Which brings me to my conclusion--that it is not real afterall. We really are just pretending to be adults.

Matching Socks

I feel like it is never too early to introduce a child to helping with household tasks. One of Elinore's duties is to match socks. Everytime I fold laundry, she is in charge of all the socks. She takes her job very seriously.

Correction: CHIRIMOYA

I wrote to all of my Chilean friends last night to wish them a happy September 18, tell them about my amazing find, and ask them what to do with it.

EVERY ONE of them wrote me back first to correct my spelling--it is CHIRIMOYA not cherimoya-- then to tell me that the best way is to cut it into little pieces and mix it with freshly squeezed orange juice. Since they were unanimous, I'm obligated to eat the next one that way. Apparently they call this dessert "chirimoya alegre"--the happy chirimoya.

Good luck to me. Too bad there's no one to share it with!

Catalina and the Cherimoya

Last time I was in Chile my hostmom asked me if there was anything special I wanted to see, do, or eat while I was there. I told her I wanted to eat a real live cherimoya. A cherimoya is a tropical fruit that I had never heard of until arriving in Chile, and even then, it was elusive. I tasted the flavor in ice cream, yogurt, popsicles, etc, but never had even seen the real fruit. So last time I was in Chile, it was summer and my hostmom went out in search of cherimoya to no avail. There were none to be found as it is apparently a delicate fruit that is ripe in the early summer months (late November, early December in Chile).

This evening while roaming around the plain old grocery store (Jewel for those of you who know) I stumbled across a basket of this UGLY fruit labeled Cherimoya!! I couldn't believe my eyes, and on top of that, today is Chilean Independence Day!! It was destiny. The label on the cherimoya said "ripe when slightly soft," so I picked what I thought would be a good one, then picked another just in case. At the checkout, they rang up at $3.99 a piece, and I thought to myself, these better be DELICIOUS!

But when I got home, I realized I had no clue what to actually do with the thing. I looked up online how to prepare them, and it told me to halve it lengthwise and then scoop the creamy, delicious flesh out with a spoon. So I did, and despite the many, enormous black seeds, it was good and so fragrant! Its about the size of a large pear, and tastes a bit like fresh papaya, but is super creamy. I ate half and put the other half in the freezer to eat like ice cream tomorrow. But I still have this whole other cherimoya. Maybe I'll make a cherimoya smoothy? What a great Chilean day!

A Day in the Life of Me

Today during one of the 10:30 classes for 3-5 year olds, I had to intervene in a class where a tiny girl was hysterical over her nanny having left. Often you can distract children and calm them down, but this little girl would not be distracted--she was SCREAMING and kicking and crying, and I finally had to physically hold her in my lap while we waited for someone to call the nanny and the nanny to pick her up.

While kicking and screaming, she peed on my leg.

Does anybody want to trade lives?

Soooo Cute!!!