Fetch!

Yesterday I had a play date with a friend from church and her pair of rascally 18 month old fraternal twins. They are from Germany and so mostly speak German, although they understand a reasonable amount of English (more than I can understand in German) and communicate through facial expression and gesture and song and play. I can say useful things like nein (no!) and I smile a lot so it is mostly fine.  

We were sitting by the river watching the ducks when all of a sudden Arthur takes off his Bob the Builder hat and throws it into the middle of the river! We were shocked and could not figure out why he had done it. His little face was just laughing and laughing and then his little face fell and he got very serious and sad and said something in German. His mum said that he thought that if he threw the hat in the ducks would bring it back to him. We all had a laugh and tried to cheer him up as the yellow hat slow sank and no duck was kind enough to capture the brim in its bill and return it to us. So we sat by the water and waved goodbye. Bye bye hat. Auf Wiedersehen hut. After a while of feeling quite sad, he pulled himself up and said in German, Well I can wear other hats.

Then we went to the swing park and had a marvelous time and ate a picnic lunch. While we were swinging Kiki kept saying something to me and the look on her face said I was clearly not responding. So i asked mum to listen and she said she was asking to be pushed harder so she could go higher. Then her mum turned to her and said Heather cannot speak German and her little eyes got so wide! I'm sure she did not believe it.

At the end we stopped by the river to say another Auf Wiedersehen to the yellow hat which was by now at the bottom of the river.It was a wonderful afternoon filled with joy and laughter. Children that age are so full of joy. Every little thing is such a big exciting thing. If only we could all keep that sort of joy and wonderment in our hearts as we grow older.