Our english speaking daughter

I feel like I was about to loose patience with my neighbor. Like yesterday, he decided that it was time to do his sawing and sandering during nap time. If his machines doesn’t make irritating noise, I wouldn’t mind at all but this is too much! Grrrrrr!!!! Good that I exhausted myself before lunch by rearranging the beds in our bedroom and moving the two plastic dressers out in the living room. But I was too dumb to change beddings before I decided to do the make over.

Ella was like, “Kararating ko lang nga galing school, nagkalat ka na naman My.” (I just came from school and here you are making a mess My.) Our little grandmother of the house was constantly reminding me of not carrying heavy stuff because it was bad for pregnant. When she saw me moving the single pull out bed, she said “Mommy, wag kang magbuhat ng mabigat.” (Mommy do not carry heavy stuff.) Isn’t she sweet? I said it was fine because it was not that heavy. When Donald saw me, he left what he was doing in the kitchen and helped me move the heavier stuffs. While doing little carrying I felt pain in my tummy. I cupped it and I felt it was hard. Maybe the baby was not pleased with what I did. In time when everthing was done, I laid in bed with an aching back and tummy.

The neighbor was lucky that I was tired and have slept while he was running his machines. I was just feeling so irritated because he could do that in the morning or late afternoon but he does that every nap time. How I wish Philippines have a law like what they have in the US. It is actually public distrubance. Their machines, their pigs….this is the only time I wished I was deaf.

Last night while Ella and I are in bed and Donald was still in the computer, she said “Put off the lights Daddy.” And when Donald stood to put off the lights (and lit the lamp shade), she said “Thank you father, thank you.” She also exclaimed, “I love it!” When we are dressing her for school. She’s trying. Donald and I are laughing because Ella was not speaking English before. Although we are teaching her and sometimes Donald and I are using the language when talking to tease her, she have not said a sentence. She was even scared to be near white people when we go to the city. Scared because they speak English.

Last time when we were in the city, Ella went to the mall with her Tita Crislyn while I and Donald went to the doctor for a follow up check up. When they arrived in the mall, my sister brought her to DreamHouse to play. When we still live in the city and she was with me, I prefer leaving her to Wonderland since it has more toys and I think it is safer there. But she liked DreamHouse more because they have a 2 storey play house and they have hanging bridge and horses made of wood. It is really cute because it looks so real. It is really for kids. Everything is small-chairs, tables and even the stairs and the bed. Ella would beg to play there everytime we chance in the mall but this time when they were approaching DreamHouse, Ella said to my sister “Ayoko dito Tita kasi may mga sira ulo.” (I do not like here Tita because there are crazy kids here.) When my sister asked her why she said that, she answered “Kasi may mga batang Inglesera.” (Because there are kids who speak English.)

Ella is very friendly but when she sees kids like them, she turns her back away or if she was already in there and she later found out that there are kids who speaks English there, she will make sure to keep distance from them. These are Filipino kids too (some are Chinese or Koreans). And I can’t blame her that she loathe kids like them because she has several bad experiences. She was hit, pulled, pushed by these kids and they could be too bossy, grabbing toys from her hands and stopping her from playing with certain toys. Of course I was telling her not all kids who speak English are the same, but she might have taken the trauma badly.

Even so, this would not stop her from begging to play when she knows we are heading to the mall. On the day of our returning to the province, we went to SM first to buy cereals and other groceries that could not be found here in the jungle. She asked to play for the last time, so Donald took her to Playhouse. SM has Wonderland too but Playhouse is cheaper because they offer unlimited play hours for P160.00 (around $3.26) only while the other one don’t have this good deal. Then I and Donald went to the get what we needed and had a quick lunch. Since we don’t have anything to do to kill the time, we went up there to see how Ella is doing. She was playing alone and she called me to come inside. When inside, she asked me to play with her. Later did I notice that there are three Chinese kids (speaking English) and one girl acts as if the toys are hers. She would not let anyone enter the Little Tykes Playhouse and ride the toy car she claims to be HERS. I was sitting on the carpet while Ella was trying to gather food toys that are left lying around so we could play “cooking” and this girl began takin what Ella has put in the toy grill. Since this girl was such a brat, I began telling her not to take those. She said she wanted to play. I then said if you wanted to play with these toys, then share whatever you have in there (pointing the playhouse). She refused. I said, “Those toys are not yours, this place is not yours and you should share those because the kids here are paying so they could play and if you won’t listen, I will talk to your Mom.” Then she was insisting I did not know her Mom etc…etc…By this time my blood pressure was shooting up, I knew it. Kids are avoiding her and letting her win because they can’t speak her language. They can’t express what they have in mind so I spoke for them. I told her if she won’t be good, I will really have to tell the owner and that she might not be allowed to play there anymore. I do not know if this is scaring the kid but I mean it. REally I would talk to the ladies on the desk. She stopped and never fussed when one little girl took the toy car and others went inside and raided “her” playhouse. I do not know if I did the right thing, but this girl is 8 years old or older.

When we went out, I asked Ella how I did while talking to the kid. She said, “You speak English very well.”

Tags: DreamHouse, Ella, home, play, Wonderland

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