"Can We Visit?"

From the very first day Mike and I moved in, we have had people knocking on our door constantly! Okay, maybe it has slowed down a little bit... an ency weensy tiny bit. But none-the-less, after working a 12 hour day, we come home, sit down, take a breath, and the inevitable knock comes... followed by, "Can we visit?!"

This has taken some getting used to, but don't get us wrong, we do enjoy it! It surprises us how many times our door gets knocked on and at what times too! Our most frequent visitors are the kids. Whom we love to see their smiling faces on our door step.

This is how a usual door conversation will a little kiddie will go: 

Knock! Knock! Knock! 

Opens door. 

"Can we visit!" shout the children in their sing song voices. 

"Not tonight." We reply as tired old people. 

"How come?" they ask in return. 

"Because we just got home and are making dinner."

"Can we visit after dinner?"

"Maybe."

"Okay, we'll wait out here."

"Well, it still has 15 minutes to cook and then we have to eat it so it's going to be a little while, why don't you go play and come back in about a half hour?"

"Okay..." Then when you think they might actually do what you suggested, "Want to know something?"
"What?"

Then they proceed to tell us some silly story about something.

"Oh, wow, okay, I'm going to close the door because I'm getting cold!"

"Is Mike there?" They say, doing anything to delay you closing the door.

"Yes, he is cooking dinner."

"Oh, we want to tell him something."

So I go and get Mike because I know that me relaying the message will not be good enough for them.

Mike comes to the door.

"Can we visit?"

"Not right now?"

"How come?" They ask again, as if my word wasn't good enough for them. : )

"Because we're making dinner."

"Guess what?"

"What?"

They then proceed to tell or show Mike something silly such as how they can slide down our banister.

"Cool, okay, I'm going to go because I need to finish making dinner."

"Tell Lisa to come back..."

And so on.

Usually the kids forget to come back. And they usually tell us that they plan on just waiting on our little porch until we let them visit. We have tested this and they will stay on the porch unless we tell them to do otherwise! They used to be able to climb on the railing and peek in our window to make sure we were actually doing what we said we were doing but then my wonderful mother sent us curtains so this can no longer take up their waiting time! Sometimes they show up minutes later with more children thinking that perhaps we cannot turn them down since there are more children this time! Sometimes they come back several times with different children, as if we would let certain ones visit and not others. Sometimes a simple, "not right now," is good enough and they leave, other times they kick their shoe in the door before we close it forcing us to open it again.

We have also come to know certain peoples knocks and we make a prediction before we open the door. "Sounds like and Erick knock," we might say before nosing who has to get off the couch. Or, "sounds like child knock." Two of my students in particular, I can always tell if it's them because one knocks nice and respectfully (we always mistake her for an adult when she is alone) and the other kicks the door three times. "Oh ________ and ________ are at the door!"

If it's not a child wanting to visit, the second most common person to knock on our door will be someone who wants to sell us a piece of art. These are usually men, sometimes they are Mike's students. We usually admire the work and ask them some questions, sometimes we buy and sometimes we don't. Then the seller takes off right after we decide. We have one person though who always comes right on in (we recognize his knock : ) ) and he sits down for a little. He will tell us about the art, what it is made of and if there is a story behind it. He also shares stories with us about his family and Shishmaref. He always tells us what he is making for dinner. Today he told us he just finished eating a, "white man sandwich" which made me smile. 

The third most common visitors are the other teachers, mainly Erick, who wants to come over and shoot zombies with Mike and play Left 4 Dead II. 

I think we get more little girls who want to visit than boys, we don't let them in very often, because we really are busy, and when we do let them in we set a time limit of about 5 minutes. It beats me why they would want to visit their teachers on the weekend anyways! The boys used to visit a lot because they wanted to play XBox with Mike and they would ask me in the middle of the day, "Can we come and play XBox after school?!" My one student always asks me, "Can I come play XMen at your house?" We don't even have XMen but he said he will bring his copy. Today, I had the best visitor though because it was two of my students (the mature knocker and the three kicker) and when I opened the door they said they had made me something. The one's mom had been teaching them to knit and she knitted me a bracelet! It made me so happy because usually, I can tell, they color a picture and then decide they don't want it so they give it to me. But sometimes they make a card or something and I know it was for me because it has my name on it and I know it wasn't an after thought. So I thought the bracelet was so sweet!

 

At first we didn't really know what to do when they visited so we did thinks like color, or play a game. Now we know they basically just want to come in and look around and ask you questions such as what things are and why you have them.

Mike playing XBox with some of our visitors.

 At first when they came in we noticed them saying, "real tiny." We thought they were talking about our house even though theirs are about the same size. Since then though, we have learned they were talking about our TV!

Playing with the magnets.

Besides wanting to visit, sometimes, well actually every time we are walking around and a child comes across us they ask, "Can we follow?" Which means, "Can we tag-along." Well of course we can't say, "No!" So no matter where we walk we almost always have little ones trailing along with us but they keep us company. It is especially fun if they follow us to the store because they then all want to carry our bags back for us : ) One time, I went to the post office and a little boy insisted on carrying my heavy box back for me. I didn't even know who he was yet. It was so heavy he actually fell over once while carrying it, not that it was a far fall, and he had soft sand to land on, and even though I felt bad he wouldn't let me help and he insisted on doing it! What a gentleman!

So cute!

So until next time, "You cannot visit right now, why don't you come back in about a half an hour?"

"How long is that? We need a watch."

"Go run around the island one time and then it will be about a half an hour."