Birthdays

 We just wrapped up the second week of school and have started getting into our groove. The boys attended their first Chilean birthday party, and that was a trip. First of all, it was for the entire class, and the numbers add up quite quickly: 30 kids + 10 siblings + 1.5 parents on average per kid, that's 85 people!

 This particular party was held at the communal event space of their apartment building, which was very nice and designed for exactly this purpose. It had a lounge area, a bar area, a giant outdoor table, a grassy lawn, and finally a little playground. The parents had hired face painters/activity doers/animal balloon makers for the kids. Emerson chose to be a "tigre," and Avery chose just to watch. 

We noticed a couple of interesting differences between a Chilean party and a US birthday party. First, when we showed up with our present and handed it to the little girl and her Mom, instead of putting it in the pile of presents to open later, the little girl opened it on the spot! I also noticed that while most everyone seemed to bring a present, most of the presents were very minimally wrapped, as in "here's the paper bag it came in from the store with Happy Birthday written on it" minimal. Which makes some sense because when I was looking for wrapping paper for our January Christmas, it was slim pickings. Second, the cake was not the gigantic decorated monstrosity it is in the US. For the 85 people that were at the party, the cake was about the size of a loaf of bread, and it was very adult looking, a dulce de leche something.  It had candles but no kiddy decor: no sprinkles, no unicorn colors, no Pokemon decals. And the slices they cut were microscopic. I might have been a bit miffed at this, as were the kids because I made all four of us share one slice of cake. I DON'T GET MY OWN PIECE OF CAKE AT A BIRTHDAY PARTY? WHY THE HELL AM I HERE THEN? was the boys' attitudes. But their feelings quickly flip flopped when they learned there would be a piñata. Difference number 3, all the parties here have a piñata. Except they don't do the whacking with sticks routine, too many kids I guess, the parents just pull a cord and it opens. One good idea this Mom had was she had her hired helpers have other bags of candy that they threw around the outer edges of the child mob pit, so they weren't clawing over each other and got to spread out a bit and there was enough to go around. 

The kids had a good time I think. It was for Emerson's class, so he was running around playing with the kids he knew. 

Avery found a toy motorcycle and zoomed it around the whole time. 

Drew and I managed to converse in Spanish the majority of the time, but it's amazing how exhausting it is to be trying to speak in another language for an extended period of time. Mentally it feels like you've just taken 3 finals in one day, every day. More on this exhaustion in the next blog.

Last Tuesday it was actually my birthday, the very benign 37. Drew curated a very lovely day for me. The night prior I got to skip bed time and attend a new book club, more on that later too. Then I got to sleep in, which is always a treat. After school drop off, we went and had coffee at a new coffee shop that just opened around the corner from us. Drew and I returned home and saunaed for 20 min or so. Yes, our building has a sauna, and only Drew and I seem to use it. Maybe that will change in the winter, but right now we have it to ourselves. Then I got to read my book on our lovely patio (for those of you who are waffling on whether to visit, our patio in the morning will make it worth the trip, I promise) for a bit before heading to a 90-min massage from a wonderful Filipina lady that Brian found, and it only costs $35. After that, I returned home while Drew got the boys from school. Then a couple we meet in the building of our Airbnb came over to sing happy birthday real quick and eat a delicious chocolate torte Drew picked up from a bakery down the street. All in all, a lovely day.