Last night I went to my friend's house for some Pilates & True Blood, but what I got was TOTALLY different. When I pulled up in the taxi, I found about 8 kids playing in a broken water line in the street right in front of the house. The kids are all playing outside, taking pictures with the other PCVs camera.
As we walk over to the side yard I see the boys climbing the mandarin tree and jumping on the roof. Of course all of this makes me very nervous, but no one is getting hurt, they seem to know what they are doing & are having fun.
After about 7 minutes, the mosquitoes start attacking me, so I go inside...only to be followed by three little girls.
I know how much they love being around us, and I do not get enough kid time. I start stretching out, getting ready for Pilates, and they start to mimic what I'm doing. So we do a few stretches and the sun salutation (yoga). It starts to get dark early, so we walked the girls home.
We began our real Pilates work out & a few minutes later, the little girls showed up again. They were on their way to church & didn't want to go, so their mother just dropped them off (and no, we did not have any prior knowledge that this was happening). We played for a while with the guitar and reading books - then came beauty shop.
Just before beauty shop began
They started with my hair, I forgot that little girls like to do that -since all I have are nephews. After some time, they decided I needed some makeup. I had eyeshadow on my cheeks, mascara in my eyebrows & I think they lined my lips with eyeliner - but they were having lots of fun, and I looked amazing. My friend escaped the makeup because she was cooking dinner.
Another thing I've forgotten about children: they are vultures. They will eat anything you are eating, even if they've already had dinner. I have clear memories of my nephews eating at least half of whatever I'm eating, sitting there like little birds waiting for the next bite - its pretty much the only time I can get my 2 year old nephew to sit with me, when I have food he wants. Example:
Butters finishing my dessert at Maravu
And we experienced that last night as well. After making about 6 pieces of bruschetta, somehow my friend and I only ended up with about once piece each. Having kids around is a good way to ensure you're not over eating.
After dinner we played some more. One game the oldest girl, Va, came up with was a hybrid between Rock, Paper, Scissors and True or Dare. If you lose at the first game you have to chose "Promise" or "Dare". Of course I was the first one to lose, so she said to me "promise or dare" - i chose promise and she says "You have to promise all of us that you will come back here on Friday and bring cookies" my friend and I couldn't stop laughing. Then I asked her what the dare would be, and she says in her little Fijian accent "I dare you to.........punch Lena in the face". I had trouble breathing I was laughing so hard.
By 10:30 it was time for me to head home. Even though the night did not turn out how I envisioned, it was still a fantastic time!
g
