Children

When I moved to San Miguel it quickly became apparent that I had a choice as to which social community I was to become a member; the retired ex-pat community (older than me) or the more bohemian, artsy, crowd (younger than me). While I acquired a few older friends, by far I fell into the later group. Maybe it is my inherent immaturity but I think it was simply because they were more fun.

What this has meant over the last six years is that I’m repeating a former stage of my life. That period where people are getting engaged, married and having children, giving birth to a series of events such as weddings (where I was a stand-in Father of the Bride in one and a witness in another), baptisms (I am godfather to one and another on the way), first communions, etc.

The same crowd with whom I used to party until daylight, now come over and bounce children on their laps. The lawn that used to be covered with beer caps is now covered with toys. (Ok, the beer caps are still there.) I love it. I even get slightly disappointed when our friends show up to an event without their children. The words, “We got a baby sitter” make me a little sad.

Unique to this environment is that all these children are growing up bi-lingual, some even tri-lingual.

Santiago’s parents are British and German-Mexican. He is 11 years old and when speaking to someone, he must invoke his own form of racial profiling. He looks at the person and then decides whether he is going to address them in English, Spanish or German. We were at his home for dinner one evening and he was entertaining us in English. I turned to his mother and said, “He has the most delightful British accent.”

“You don’t think he sounds American?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Oh good,” she said. “No offense.”



While the babies are cute as ever, I love when they get to the talking stage. At age four, Liam’s mother asked him how was his first day at pre-school. His response was, “I didn’t hurt anybody.”

I was carrying this same Liam to his parents’ car one evening, balancing him on my hip, when he said to me, “Can you put me down? My penis is up and it hurts.” Of course I put him down immediately. (Later I thought, I should have taught him something more subtle. Like, “Hey dude. Put me down. You’re smashing my junk.”)

And I love the latest that his mother posted on facebook:

“I've been telling Liam that he can't say "boobie" at his Nuna's house. So tonight I put him to bed and said when you see everyone, Papa Jack, Aunt Jancie, Mimi and Papa and Nuna you can tell them that you love them. He said, "And I won't say "boobie". What a good boy.”

Rodrigo keeps suggesting that we adopt or find a surrogate mother. “We can’t afford it,” doesn’t entirely convince him. I’m not sure that, “I’m 50!” does either.