No bueno para tu...

I'm a people watcher. Like many of my other people watching friends, I never made a conscience decision to be one; I just am and always have been. I find people interesting, I enjoy seeing commonness and uniqueness among my fellow humans, and I always see something endearing and funny that helps compensate for the occasional jerk behavior I also see.  Something particularly noteworthy to me is when I see all the elements of a story while noticing someone who is part of the story only seeing a piece of it. There's sometimes this unknowing, when something bigger, sadder or funnier is happening right under their nose and yet, through no fault of their own, they happen to miss it. It makes me wonder what I've missed that others have seen from a distance... on occasion someone has approached me to tell me about an entire scene from my brood that I missed. I love when this happens - if you see something funny that I missed, please rush over to tell me! It IS kind of ironic that I ended up having so many kids, because my unchosen hobby comes in handy since I'm a silent observer to many entertaining situations on a daily basis just among my own household.

For instance...

Today Jose is cleaning out the garage, going in and out of the door, clearly on a mission. As he comes in and goes out, I hear him talking to the boys... whichever one happens to be in his path during any given trip. They're just clipped conversations since Jose isn't slowing down but is taking care of "dad business" as he goes... "hey, stop that", "what are you doing?", "put that where it goes, please" and so on and so forth.

I have just picked up my phone and taken a picture of Adrian in the laundry room with a bunch of kittens lying in a basket of dirty towels. He is covering each of their bodies with additional towels to "make them comfy". They're happy as clams with clearly nowhere to be. I put my phone down and get my next armload of dirty clothes from suitcases we took on our vacation and, after moving wet blankets to the dryer, I start to put the dirty clothes in the washing machine. I hear Santi come up behind me, and, standing at the baby gate, he says, "Awww da titties (the kitties) are toe tiute (so cute)!" Adrian says, "You want one? Or do you want SOME?" Santi tells him he wants one. Adrian explains, "Well, they're for sale. One is 25 cents. That's one quarter, Santi." Santi says he wants to buy more than one, to which Adrian replies, "Three of them are 3 quarters and two of them are 2 quarters." I can't help but notice that he didn't even offer scaled pricing.

Just then, as I'm adding some essential oils to a wet cloth that's going into the dryer to freshen up the boys bedding, I hear the pitter patter of Santi's bare feet running away from us just as I also hear the garage door open and feel a rush of air as Jose walks past towards to the kitchen. I'm now hanging up wet clothes from the washing machine that I don't want to put in the dryer and, in the distance, I hear Jose getting onto Santi. Jose walks back past us and back out to the garage. What he doesn't know is he just intercepted Santi making a deal to purchase some kittens and just threw a wrench in his plans to secure 3 quarters from his chore earnings. I continue on with my current task and witness Santi coming back into the laundry room where Adrian has been talking to the kittens and completely missed the exchange between Jose and Santi. So he looks up and holds out his hand, expecting to see 3 quarters drop from Santi's hand into his. Instead, Santi says, "Towwy! I tan't div you my tings," (referring to the quarters he was unable to get his hands on thanks to his daddy's interference), "but I habbbbbb... DIS!" And he hands Adrian an old button that I found myself craning my neck to see better in case it's the one that I can't find from my jacket. Adrian's face changes from glowing anticipation to annoyed disappointment, and he refuses to engage in any of this bartering business. "It's quarters or no bueno para tu."
As I finish up my task and head back out of the laundry room until this current load is finished, I turn around to see Santi still holding out the button and just killing Adrian with kindness. Ahhh manipulation being used on the King of this tactic... it's a sight to see. Adrian sees through it and tells Santi that he will not be able to buy any kittens, but Adrian IS gracious enough to add that Santi can look at them for as long as he wants.
For a moment I find myself contemplating saying something given that these are really not Adrian's kittens to sell, and this is really nothing more than a hustle. But I decide against it knowing that both are learning and practicing some important life skills here, and allowing them to navigate on their own often pays off.
But, I'll say this, Santiago is learning allllll the tricks and tactics from all 3 older brothers with their various ways and strategies, and one day he is going to be a forced with which to be reckoned! And I'll be able to say I saw the whole thing play out, and you taught him well.

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