When Dannica was about 14 months old she and I were riding the light rail in Denver Colorado for a trip down town. She was squirming like crazy sitting on my lap so I set her feet down and held on to her hand. In complete Dannica fashion she quickly ran away across the aisle and promptly licked an African American man sitting across from us.

Yes, she licked him.

First his hand and then before I could stop her she dropped and licked his knee. I was mortified. I apologized and scooped her up only to have my embarrassment grow as she started yelling “Chocolate! Chocolate!”

She was convinced the man was made of chocolate. The lack of social behavior was bad enough but truly I was saddened that she hadn’t been socialized around more people of various colors. We had moved from Utah and while it is improving, Utah is not really known for its diversity. There was exactly one black person in my whole high school. Yep one. Well diversity isn’t a problem now! We loved being around so many different cultures in D.C. The people, languages, and food just add so much wonderful variety.

Well things turned full circle last week. A little girl in our compound had a birthday party and her fabulous mother had all sorts of fun games set up outside for all the kids to play. A cute little toddler, who belongs to one of the Stewards that lives in the housing behind our compound, kept undoing all of the cones my friend was setting out for the game. Dannica scooped her out of the way during a potato sack race before she could get run over. She reminded me so much of Dannica at the same age. Busy busy busy. She looked so sweet in her party dress. The baby was just enthralled with the difference and variation in their skin. She didn’t lick her but she wouldn’t stop pinching her cheeks. It went on like this for almost twenty minutes.

 

It was adorable! We really love compound living. Great people around always and the kids have made so many wonderful friends.