A Lazy Saturday Being Inspired

We've been running at full tilt for months now--buying cars, moving into our new house, finding a school for the kids (itself a part time job), meeting people, and hosting lots of new friends at our house.

I, of course, have a long list of things I still think we need to do pretty quickly, but Nathan, being the Type B voice in our house and, at least in this case, the voice of reason, convinced me that we needed to not make any plans for today and instead just relax, run a few errands, and get ready for Liz's arrival tomorrow (yeah!).

So, we had a lovely time this morning catching up on current events by watching the Democratic convention speeches over the internet with the kids. The kids were surprisingly interested and paid reasonably close attention. Ellie picked out the part of Hillary's speech where she mentioned Harriet Tubman and excitedly pointed out that we have a book about Harriet Tubman. I was proud to talk to the kids about how decades again people thought that women and blacks weren't as smart as white men, but today they can be important leaders.

Normal Life: Playdate with Asher

We're slowly getting settled in to normal life...accomplishing all the pressing immediate details of the move and able to occassionally just relax and have fun. Last weekend we did something utterly normal and low stress: we invited (new) friends over for a play date. These were part of an embassy family--3 year old Asher, his 4 month old sister Liesl, and their mom Julie.

Ellie and Asher had a great time playing musical instruments--including an unusual xylophone/drum thingy I got in Namibia or South Africa, and an impromptu drum Asher made out of a plastic bucket and shovels.

Then Ellie, displaying that leadership (or is domination?) eldests are known for, declared that they should all pretend to be brothers who were cowboys. Here are Ellie and Asher wearing their "cowboy hats" and "masks".

Where was Ben in all this? Well, he did go along--a little--with the cowboy theme, but he's decided that he really doesn't like to be in photos, so here is hiding from us.

More and more Nathan and I are noticing the kids' distinctive personalities. Ellie is the family extrovert who came home with four best friends her first day of preschool. (Whether they knew they were her best friends is a different story.) Ben does fine playing with other kids, but often prefers time by himself or playing in parallel with other kids rather than playing with them. Recently he's really gotten in to very elaborate and creative Lego creations, using unusual pieces in ways that his dad (himself a Lego expert) never imagined. We coaxed Ben into posing for a picture with a new Lego car that he was very proud of.

Spande Children Deny Torture Allegations

Children of an American diplomat living in Santiago have denied allegations that they have been secretly torturing their playmates. Disturbing photos which recently came to light show their friends suspended upside down, with eyes and nose covered with an impermeable substance, and in other cases restrained en masse while hanging from what appears to be a wall, while one playmate appears to be passed out near by and a potential instrument of torture--a rope--lies just inches away. One human rights representative said, "People say that children are cruel, but this case shows graphically just how cruel they can be. We're taking this case to the Hague."



However, Ben Spande, 3, and his sister, Elena, 4, defend their actions and appear to even express pride in them. Ben stated, "Elmo is pretending to be SuperElmo. He's upside down because he is flying. He's wearing a mask because he's a superhero." Ben declined to comment on allegations that the photographs show Elmo in the act of crying for help.


For her part, Elena Spande claimed responsibility for the suspension of four individuals but denied that she had any malevolent intent, saying, "They are all on a ride at the fair. The one laying on the counter is too scared to go. And the string is to help them in case they fall."

Child psychologists are puzzled by several elements of the case, noting that Elena Spande appears in the photos for both incidents, despite her brother claiming credit for the Elmo suspension. They also note that Elena appears to be grimacing in the photo with the four suspended playmates. Sigmoid Freund stated, "In this case, the older child seems to be claiming credit for her brother's work. This is a common behavior among disturbed older children who are used to being the smartest and most advanced children in their families. Her grimace in the second photograph may indicate that she is beginning to be capable of some moral reasoning and may be feeling remorse for her actions." When asked about these observations, Jennifer Spande, mother of the "preschool torturers", said, "Remorse shmorse. Ben is just going through a phase where he doesn't want to be in photos, but Ellie is a total ham. And yeah, sometimes her photo smile does look like a grimace, doesn't it?"

Hallelujah! Spandes Join the Modern World

OK, this is going to sound whiny and improbable coming from someone who has spent the greater part of the last decade living in the developing world, but it is so hard to get anything done without internet at home!

I guess one of the consequences of living in a developed country like Chile is that everything is online here. Movie listings, yellow pages, point to point directions and maps--it's incredible how wired this country is. I read somewhere that 87% of Chilean have internet access. Amazing! Is that higher than in the US?

Our efforts at settling in here have been very much stymied by lack of internet access at home. Information about schools (the little that is available publicly), adds for nanas, used car inventories, etc--everything is online. Thank goodness that after 6 weeks in country we finally have internet at home! Yeah! The wi-fi doesn't reach as far as the dining room table, where someone likes to eat her breakfast while reading the NY Times, but we'll fix that later. Now we are just so happy to be connected!

Jen's trip to Congress

It's been a very busy week. Nathan's been having back problems, so he's been going to the chiropractor 3x per week...and having to take the kids with him. Jen accompanied the Ambassador on his first trip to the legislative capital of Chile, Valparaiso. Plus we moved into our permanent housing on Friday (yeah!) and went car shopping on Saturday. The kids start preschool tomorrow.

Here are a few photos of the trip to Congress:

Meeting Senate President Adolfo Zaldivar

Pol/Econ Counselor Juan Alsace (my boss), Ambassador Paul Simons, Congress professional staffer Julio Camara, and me

It's a beautiful clear day today so hopefully we'll get some photos of our neighborhood and the terrific mountains nearby. Life is a bit more complicated now that we are out in the 'burbs and still have no car and now can't walk to places to get internet access. But hopefully we'll have internet at home in the next few days!