“Dah!” That’s how Lowe says Ouest.

“Dah Dah?” Is how Lowe asks where Ouest is.

It seems Lowe is going to be slow to talk just like Ouest was. He’s got noises for everything though, and Ali is the world champion of hearing and understanding him. Lowe will be grunting at me for a full minute before I hear Ali yell from another room, “He doesn’t know where the scooter is!” or “Get Lowe a drink will you?”

Today a lady swam out to me and Lowe and said, “I have a twenty-five year-old son and when I saw you two here the other day I started crying. The white hair reminded me of him. And how much he loves the water. The years go by fast, watch out.”

Ouest is doing great at school. She always comes out of school all smiles, and the kids all laugh and play while the parents linger a few moments to let them have their fun before heading home at the end of the day.

She has two girls at school that she loves. One in her class, Fatima, and one older girl that she sees at recess and who helped her with a class painting project the other day. When I say she loves these girls I mean it literally. She says things like, “I saw the girl me love today.”

“Oh good, which one?” I ask.

“The older one.”

Or even better is the water bottle story. We send Ouest to school with her big pink water bottle every day. When she gets home it is usually empty and while going through her lunch box Ali says something like, “Good job drinking all your water today Ouest.”

“Oh, me not drink that.”

“What do you mean, what happened to it?”

“The girl me love drink all my water.”

“You mean Fatima?” She can not for the life of her remember Fatima’s name. We just keep practicing.

“Yeah. Fatima drink all my water.”

“Why? Doesn’t Fatima have any water?”

“Me not think so.”

She would say this almost daily to us, to the point that we started to wonder if she wasn’t making the whole thing up. But then today the kids came out of class and were playing in the courtyard together while the parents waited for them. Ouest got her water bottle out of her bag for a drink and almost instantly Fatima was standing directly in front of her with her hands together like she was praying.

Thank you Fatima for proving Ouest is not a liar.

Fatima then climbed on a motorcycle between her mama and papa and yelled out, “Adiós Ouest!”

Ouest looked up and enthusiastically yelled back, “Adiós Fatima!”

I was so proud. She said Fatima!

After school we walked over to our favorite taco stand. There is a young guy that does the cooking and a young (as in twenty-ish) girl that serves the food, drinks, and cleans up. She is infatuated with Ouest, and she is also about the nicest girl I’ve ever met. Despite her not knowing a word of English we’ve had some nice conversations. The other day I found out she’s pregnant with a girl (whom I have no doubt will be named West) and that her mother makes bows. Little girl hair bows. And she insisted on giving Ouest some.

Hide-and-go-seek under the bed.