Girls & Boys

The family we stayed with has three girls aged 10, 7 and 5 and one boy aged 21 months. Gabe used to play a lot with Laura, the five-year-old and I wrote a blog about it a couple of years ago. Apparently, Laura was thinking that she & Gabe had been engaged for the last two years. However, Gabe and the 7-year-old, Allison, really enjoyed each other's company. Allison and Gabe are both very talkative and they really made a connection. They bought each other the Laos caps they are wearing in this picture. A few days into the trip we were sitting at a lovely little French restaurant and Laura reminded Gabe of their engagement. Gabe chose that moment to tell her that it was off. Our attention was drawn to the situation by hearing Laura say "I'm going to be honest and share with you!" in a very loud voice. She scolded Gabe for breaking faith with her and ordered him to sit quietly in his chair and think about what he had done. Gabe obeyed. A few minutes later I asked him what he was thinking about during his "time out". He said, "I was thinking about flying cats." Sounds like a typical relationship.



We did notice quite a difference between boys and girls during the trip. Gabe frequently has other little boys over to play and inevitably there is some fist-fighting or kicking or wrestling. I don't think I witnessed any physical violence even once while we stayed with our friends.