The Ouch heard around the world

He loves to cook. Julius is my spontaneous exchange student. He is determined to live every moment to its fullest. I have come home and found him climbing trees, where he has gotten stuck and had to be retrieved, sliding down banisters, walking three miles to a skateboard park to get some exercise which is pretty good since he doesn’t skateboard. So it was no surprise when he started baking cookies. Everyday he would work to perfect his chocolate chip cookie recipe, (and yes he cleans up after he is done).
Then late last week I heard him talking in the kitchen. I knew no one was home so I went to see what was happening. There he stood making cookies with the computer propped on the counter as he mixed away he was skyping with his dad. Now Julius's dad happens to be a chef at his own restaurant and since they were skyping he was watching his son cook. Awed by modern technology and the ability to do this I left the room so as not to disturb the private moment. I was barely into the family room when a blood-curdling shriek was heard. I rushed back to find Julius nursing burnt fingers. His dad was there asking if he was OK.
After a moment Julius shrugged and went back to his work but not before I asked what happened. "I picked up a hot cookie sheet, my dad saw it and tried to warn me."


I looked at him and said I guess that was the loudest scream ever, Julius cocked his head like a quizzical puppy, "your dad heard it in Hamburg>"

We're an inch taller and a whole lot smarter

I started measuring the boys shortly after they arrived, in green crayon (it's what was the only writing utensil in my pen cup that worked or had some resemblance of a point, and still is) Their names scratched out with lines taken from across the top of their heads.
Since then each month they have come to me and said "Please measure me, I think I have grown." Each month these two boys from two totally different worlds stand before me and my green pencil as I scratch off their ever growing height. Each time I do this I get a flash in my mind of someone else doing this for my son, I find myself wondering would she stop what she was doing to measure him and then send me a quick note, would she smile and pat him on his ever broadening back and congratulate or console? I have to hope she would, so I find myself doing what I would want done for my son. But in the end isn't that what this exchange experience is about? Not just for them but for the ever growing ripple effect of the people they meet and touch. The sharing and caring and becoming smarter as a person about people and how to treat them.