The Nanny Diaries, day four

VERY busy day today. I had the bright idea to take the kids snorkelling. After many equipment issues we set off. The boy took to it right away and was probably the best at it out of the four of us (it was Me, the kids and their Mom). We swam way out over the coral reef and ended up swimming over a mile(!) back to their beachfront villa. Their dad took the car to pick up our clothes. This afternoon I decided to take the kids into town (we took the NEW ROAD! over to the Valley), did some laundry and took a walk while the clothes were washing. Found an actual shoemaker. I asked if the kids could watch him at work for a few and he swooped them behind the counter threw a hammer into the boy's hand and did a whole "this is how we make and repair shoes" lesson. It was so cool. The guy's name was Ramon or Raymond, he was from Santo Domingo and showed us pix of his TWELVE kids, gave us a tennis ball and tried to teach the kids how to play handball against the wall of his shop. Next door was a fruit and veggie stand where I bought the kids a fresh coconut that the guy there hacked open with a machete and handed the girl a straw to drink the fresher than fresh coconut milk. The boy had two seriously quotable moments today: this morning he asked, "How far up is heaven?" and this afternoon while we were waiting for the clothes to finish, they were sitting and tossing/rolling the forementioned tennis ball between themselves when he said, "Could you please stop hurting my penis?" I guess his older sister had thrown the ball into his crotch too many times. I also taught them how to play scrabble this morning, she did amazingly well completely on her own, he got some help from both of us, but came up with a few words all by himself.