Climbing the Fence

Español: Subiendo la Cerca

Today Estrella and I were visiting my brother, helping him move stones in the yard. He lives in the same house I grew up in, and I was telling Estrella how I used to climb the fence of the yard to get everywhere. On one side, I would climb the fence and go to the neighbor's swing set. Where the yard reached the alley, I would climb the fence to go to my friend Chris Patton's, or just through his yard to take the short cut to the next block, where other friends lived. There were even times that we passed the bikes over the fence to ride down the alley and go to the corner store.

I asked Estrella to climb the fence, and she said she didn't know how. I couldn't believe it! How could she be almost five years old and not know how to climb a fence yet? When I think of what I was doing at her age, I remember us kids going everywhere, doing everything on our own.

Well, we didn't waste any more time. Both of us climbed the fence together. I found it difficult to do it with small movements, but I made the effort to do it along with her, showing her how to use her foot on either side.

She picked it up pretty quick, and we both passed over the fence a time or two before heading out.

In the same day, we also tried out cartwheels, writing postcards to her grandmother in chile, to her father in brazil, and she pushed me on the spinning cup in the park.