Manners, Please

My 4 year old neighbor Lily brought her classmate David over to my house to play.  This is David’s first time visiting my house.  Like usual, she asks me to see the books and I haul the box out onto the porch.

David grabs the pages roughly, crumpling them.  Lily tells me he doesn’t know how to turn the pages, and I instruct her to teach him, which she does.

My radio on the bench catches David’s eye, so he picks it up and starts fiddling with it.  Lily yells, “That’s Bechi’s! Don’t touch!”  He puts it down.

I cut up a ripe banana and bring it out to them.  They ask me for another and I say no.  David follows me into my house, asking me again for another banana: “Gringa, da me un otro maduro.” Lily glares at him from the porch and shouts, “Her name is Bechi! David, get out of her house!  We play on the porch.” He returns to the porch.

I never had to deal with David because Lily did all of the policing for me.  This visit was eye-opening to how genteel my neighborhood kids have become in my household.  They have adapted to my foreign house rules: no wrappers or peels on the ground, books return to the box, and don’t enter my house without permission.  After returning to my house after a week away, a kid has given me a dime that he found on my porch ground.  Not to say that they’re all perfect.

Most of the neighbors’ houses look like a tornado recently struck inside, with clothes and dishes everywhere, so it is impressive that these kids have adapted so well to my orderliness.  But perhaps this only adds to my house’s sense of safe haven – away from wood needing to be chopped, babies needing to be changed, and rice needing to be cooked.