I realized tonight, while drinking hot cocoa and watching cheesy late shows, that I have Conan O’Brien hair. Not having had anything resembling a hairstyle since I shaved my head in March, I hoped that I was finally coming around to a cute hair phase again. But I think that cute is the wrong word. Silly is much more appropriate.

Silliness seems to be the name of the game, lately. I’m going to call it residual childhood gaiety from the two little Swiss girls who took me in for three months last summer. Thankfully Tanja (age five) and Nina (age three) were much more concerned with my capacity for trampoline-jumping, chalk drawing, and dwarf-house-building than with my haircut; and my short hair was much easier to manage at their whirlwind pace than a long mane would have been.

Their family’s outlook on hair was simple: cut the hair so it falls nicely and can be tamed practically. For two big-eyed and sweet-smiled girls, short cuts with bangs shaped their curly hair well, and meant we never had to go through the hassle of tying it up. For Brecht and Kathrin, their dad and mom, the ‘one-size-fits-all’ philosophy of the village’s barber suited them just fine. Tanja and Nina had to brush their hair once-per-day, and wash it every-other. If they simply refused to take a bath one evening, Kathrin herded them out into the garden to be sprayed off with the hose, which delighted them. I waited with towels on the porch to bring them squealing inside to brush their teeth.

Firm but adaptable maintenance routines meant that there was plenty of time to enjoy other activities. Activities oriented towards entertaining the girls, but with serious big-kid entertainment value, too. Kiddos are big on animal impressions. While going over the names for different animals in English, I was forced to purrrrfect my cat’s meow and my lion’s roar. My friend Chelsea tried her hand at it, too, although the prize for monkey business goes to Hunter, who blew all of us away (and sent the girls screaming) with his grizzly bear interpretation. Cooking, too, became a point of communal interest. Kathrin found a recipe for snake bread, dough you can make at home and then twist around sticks to bake over a campfire, and I mixed batter while Tanja and Nina carefully measured out (gleefully flung) flour.

Of course, in the Swiss Alps, there was no shortage of outdoor recreation. Just walking Tanja home from school across the green meadows was a larger dose of fresh air than most city dwellers get in a month, but this family is majorly oriented towards the outdoors. Brecht works as a mountain guide, and along with her job as an anesthesiologist, Kathrin does alpine rescue work in a helicopter. After we ate lunch on the patio every day, Tanja and Nina scurried around the built-in climbing wall. They worked out their post-lunch grumpies by scuffling with each other while climbing. I’ve never seen a more impressive display of physical aggression than from the two of them: grasping the holds with one hand and one foot and battling with their free limbs. Not to worry, there were mattresses below to catch the loser when she fell. Her pride would be wounded, but after a soothe-and-cuddle session she’d be back up and ready for the afternoon’s activities. Sometimes real rock climbing if Brecht was around, sometimes a trip to the pool, sometimes bike rides, sometimes sprawling on the back lawn with barbie clothes and cars. Even the tedious doll games became more interesting when Tanja decided to fasten a rope, which she tied off with pro climber knots that made her papa beam, between the playhouse and a tree to create a zipline for the toys.

Aaaaah. Writing about their family comes out either as rainbow-tinted anecdotes, or as mushy-gushy “they changed my life” stuff. The mushy-gushy truth, though, is that they did change my life.

When living with kids, you witness the true worshipers of carpe diem. They may be headstrong about the way they prefer to live their day, but they are also incredibly responsive and adaptive. I hope that, along with all the silliness, some of this philosophy rubbed off on me.

In September I put on costumes with Tanja and Nina and ran around the yard like a superhero. A month ago I giggled with Santiago’s nephew who was fascinated by the fact that I could whistle. Last week I went for a hike with my friend Ezequiel, and we discovered that we both still play the hot lava game when we hike … where we pretend that the trail is bubbling magma and we have to hop between big rocks and tree roots. Today I remembered a song I made up when I was seven, and I sang it as I drove. I like to think that I am young at heart, and I am thankful for the people who bring out the giggly girl in me.

So, because Conan O’Brien is such a hoot, I suppose I’m not terribly upset about sharing his hair style.