When my friend Juliana and her husband Matt lived in Cuba for a year, their yard was filled with avocado trees. From their kitchen window, they watched the avocados grow from tiny green bumps into large beautiful fruit. They imagined tasting the creamy goodness when the avocados had grown ripe enough to eat. One day, just when the avocados appeared to be nearing perfection, a group of boys came and picked every last one. Although Juliana was incensed, she didn't stop them, but watched them from the window as they emptied the trees systematically right before her eyes.

Later that afternoon, Juliana told her husband what had happened. There wasn't a single avocado left. They were angry and confused. As they looked out the window, shaking their heads at how brazen the young boys were who had stolen the avocados, they heard a knock at the door.

It was the same boys, with smiles on their faces, carrying boxes heavy with avocados. “Here is your share,” the boys explained. “We calculated how many avocados would go to each family in the community, depending on the number of people in each household. This is your share. We hope you enjoy them.”

Juliana and Matt shook their heads in happy surprise, embarrassment, and disbelief. In their wildest dreams, it had never occurred to them that the boys were doing a kind service by picking the avocados and distributing them equitably among the members of the community. From a capitalist American perspective, this conclusion could never be anticipated.

When Juliana told me this story, it made me realize how easily we are all trapped by our own cultural expectations. We live so deeply entrenched inside our own society that it is hard, if not impossible, to see beyond it. It made me recall the months I lived abroad in Santiago, Chile and how my mind felt like it was exploding the first few days I was there, while I could barely figure out how to flush the toilet, wash my clothes, order a Coke, hail a taxi, or say my own name. Living in another culture is a mind-blowing and humbling experience. No matter how polished and successful you are back home, you are an infant trying to find your fingers and toes when living abroad for the first time.

During my first few days in Chile, my American classmates and I went on a horseback ride in the countryside. It was so much fun and the hills were so beautiful I wanted to tell my Chilean host family about it when I returned. The minute I started talking (in my broken Spanish) my host mother and sister began laughing hysterically. My face turned bright red and I held my hands over my lips. I was already highly self-conscious about my imperfect Spanish skills and now I was making such an obvious fool of myself that my sweet host mother and sister couldn't even hold it together to humor me. I wanted to run into my room and cry.

“No, no,” they explained. “It's not you. We had another American student last semester. She also went horseback riding. When she returned, we asked her how she liked the trip. She said, ‘Muy bien, pero ahora tengo un pene en mi poto.'”

You see, the American student was trying to say, “It was good, but now I have a pain in my butt (from riding).” However, her thoughts were lost in translation because what she actually said is, “Very nice, but now I have a penis in my butt.”

My host family tried hard to convince her that she did not, in fact, have a penis in her butt, but the American girl was insistent. “¡Pero, que sí! ¡Tengo un pene en mi poto!” (“But I do! I do have a penis in my butt!”) Eventually, after much laughter and humiliation, the confusion was cleared up, but the fact remains, blunders like this are inevitable when you are in a foreign culture.

Babies too live in a foreign culture. They don't yet speak the language. They don't know all the social cues. And they don't always know what they are doing wrong, when people are upset with them or laughing at them.

I try to remember this when I find myself infuriated because my toddler has decided to decorate the bathroom cabinets with shampoo and conditioner. Or when I walk into the kitchen to find both my boys making snow angels in a pile of popcorn all over the floor. Or when my toddler gets angry because I laughed at him when he tried to say “sandwich” and it came out “swamich.” It was just so cute that I couldn't help myself. But he was embarrassed and humiliated. And I can't blame him. I know those feelings too.

And at the same time, watching an infant or young child explore the world for the first time is a beautiful, exhilarating experience. Every expression on their face is mesmerizing as you can read the delight they experience when watching something simple like a bird taking flight into the morning sky.

If only we could all retain that sense of enchantment for the world as adults, but our minds become numb to such simple pleasures as we struggle with work, bills, family, personal relationships, and all the other drama that comes with daily life.

Which is why we have humor. As we insulate ourselves more deeply every day in our own struggles and personal drama, our own world view, our own culture and attitudes, there will always be an occasional and unintentional stolen avocado or pene-en-mi-poto experience to keep us on our toes—humbled once again, and hopefully, laughing.