My 8 Monkeys

October 7, 2011 

            This morning I groggily stumbled into the boys room a few minutes before 6 a.m.   I started shaking the boys and saying “tiempo para levantarse!” It’s time to wake up!  As I passed by Ivan’s bed I noticed something white attached to the back of his pants.  I looked closer and saw that it was a white cord/rope tied to his back pant loop.  I pointed at it and said all I could think of in Spanish, “que?” … “what?” Immediately the boys burst into giggles, hiding their faces as they made their beds.  At this point I was beginning to catch on but wanted to hear it from them, “que?” I asked again.  I made out one word through Ivan’s giggles: “monos.” At that I couldn’t help from bursting into laughter myself.  In a couple seconds I went from being groggy and half asleep to wide awake and trying to control my laughter.  I looked around the room to discover that almost all 8 of my little boys had white “tails” attached to their pants and had apparently been doing a whole lot more than sleeping after we put them to bed last night!  My little monkeys.  Each day I am amazed by how industrious these kids are.  They come up with the most unique ways to entertain themselves.  They build damns in the creek to create a pool to go fishing, they build kites out of sticks and garbage bags, they build forts in the jungle out of tree branches and rocks, they make little houses out of the old orange bags, they even build contraptions to try to lock their room from the inside – which their mothers are endlessly having to break.  Throughout the day today the kids ran around with their monkey tails, I even saw some of them take off to school with their white tails tucked into their pants. It made me smile to see my little monkeys chasing each other around and trying to catch each others tails.  I may or may not have “accidently” stepped on a couple tails today too… which of course caused great yelps of “pain.” ;)