"Come again? Out."

Random not-quite-pithiness:

A story from Suzanne Matthews, whose boys have lived most of their lives in Costa Rica and Peru and do not watch tv (note, however, that the correlation between the two is weaker than you'd think: their parents are quite deliberate about it): Frank, Suzanne and their 4-year-old twins (Joshua and Micah) took a trip about a year ago and were in a hotel. They let the boys watch some tv. When a commercial break came on, the boys yelled to Suzanne, "Mom! We want the other show! We want to watch the other one." "Boys, it's only a commercial. The other show will come back in a minute." "But Mom, what's a commercial??"

Today, Andrew seemd to be having a hard time with his words. I asked him if he was having an "off day". His dry reply: "It's my day off - I don't have to be on." For some reason, I laughed really hard at that one.

I'd heard about (and in some part, seen) Peruvian openness. People make out and grope all over here. They nurse their kids anytime, anywhere without cover-ups. But yesterday, on a combi, was the worst. A mother was sitting down and her (rather whiny) two-year-old was standing in front of her nursing on her bare breast. Okay, friends, that's self-serve. There's got to be a cut-off and there's got to be discretion.