The other night , I found myself staring blankly at the grayish sky at the balcony of our new place — my newfound favorite spot in the house. Been contemplating abut something lately when absentmindedly, I went through the pages of my everyday worknotebook trying to divert my attention from thinking about ‘nothing’ to working despite the bad internet connection.
I saw these sweet little stickers on the inner sleeve of the cover of my everyday worknotebook. I had these when I was at home in Taytay. It was also the day before I realized that dates 10.10.10, 11.11.11 and 12.12.12 are also nice wedding dates after seeing a feature on the news of couples . Anyway, I am not thinking about my own wedding to this writing — at least not yet. But I’d like to talk about something related to that one of these days.
My two year old niece Ishka (my own nickname for her, short for Chieska or Franchieska . She was reprimanded several times for jumping all around and screaming in the house while her little 3 months old brother was sleeping. I got her punished for almost kicking her brother’s face when she sat on the couch near him and let her sat quietly, hands clasped and placed on her lap. She’s not allowed to talk or move until I told her to. Somewhat it is also a good way to enhance child’s EQ (emotional quotient)level. She fell asleep while waiting for her punishment to end.
How she looks like whenever she’s punished —infront of the TV. Oopss. Don’t try this with your kids, it may not be effective to all sort of kids as punishment, but with her it was indeed effective than the old school face-the-wall we used to give her whenever she gets so unruly which we believe to be a little humiliating for the child.
As soon as her punishment was lifted, she tries to catch my attention away from the computer. She knows how to charm me and get me to play with her no matter how I am engrossed with something. But I pretended to be busy. I wanted her to understand that what she did was wrong and I mean to punish her like that again next time if possible. She can’t be all the time so energetic and ransack the house and make noise especially when someone’s sleeping. It’s our first lessons to her about respect.
Then I heard sounds like she’s digging her toys from its box where she keeps it when playtime hours were over. I called on her name and tell her it’s past 6pm and she can’t play anymore. Then she came to me smiling and waving a sheet of stickers while calling me sweetly — Tita Joooyyy —with matching pouting lips. 🙂 She has the sweetest way of saying my name.
Smiling, she said something like ‘love, love, Tita Joy’. She started to lift the sticker from its sheet and before I could tell her not and get the stickers on my arm. Then she goes : ‘O di ba? Love, Tita Joy’ (See, Tita Joy, Love). Then she hugged me tight and kissed me. I felt guilty and wondered if punishing her like that is mean and cruel.
I indulged and let her put one sticker on my face and one on my netbook even if I knew I shouldn’t put anything near the monitor. To preserve the memory, I took a photo of it before I transferred it to the inner page cover of my everyday work notebook. Now I have it on this blog. I want her to know someday that no matter how unruly, naughty and so irritating she is at times, her loyalty and forgiving attitude that goes with her smile, sweetness and talkativeness really seals the deal with us. Much as we don’t want to give her such punishments because she is just two years old who needs to be understood and give so much patience to but she has to learn her lessons as early as possible.
Yesterday that I brought her to the playground as a reward for sleeping in the afternoon and behaving while the little boys (her 3 month old brother and one week old cousin) were sleeping.
I think I shed a few pounds running after her. 🙂
I AM YOUR SIMPLE JOY 