Conversation with Bea

Children are wonderful chatting companions. Sometimes they talk like adults. Their words surprise you and often make you ponder. Sometime they made no sense at all but still it amuses and entertains us. Here are some dialogues with my daughter.

Every time I fetch Bea from school I always ask her what she did that day.

Me: What did your teacher said today?

Bea: Bea, sit down!

Me: Besides that, what else did she say?

Bea: Bea, keep quite!

I make it a point to instill her to practice our Pilipino traits.

Me: Bea, nag-lunch ka na?

Bea: Finish na.

Me: Finish na “po”. Always put “po”. Again; Bea kumain ka na?

Bea: Yes Daddy po!

She once asked me if we could own a pet.

Bea: Daddy, buy tayo puppy?

Me: Meron na tayong dog, di ba si Petchay (my Dad’s watchdog back home).

Bea: No. Big si Petchay. Puppy lang para small.

Me: Why do you want a puppy?

Bea: Para rich.

That’s the result if you allow your kids to watch ET and they saw Paris Hilton and company whose fashion statement includes a Chihuahua. Not only that, I find Boy Abunda and his TV programs tacky but I heard my daughter blurt out phrases like “Ay, ano ba yan?” or “Ikaw talaga, oo” while watching TFC. Bakyang-bakya ang dating ng anak ko!

But Bea is popular among her teachers and peers at school (she won the “Most Friendly” award, twice in a row). In fact, she’s on a first name basis with the principal and the security guard manning the gate. She got this ability to remember names and once acted as host to her two teachers.

Bea: Teacher Ruby (her former teacher in Kinder I), come here, please.

Teacher Ruby: What is it Bea?

Bea: Teacher Ruby, this is my teacher, Teacher Anna (her teacher in Kinder II)

The two teachers gamely shook hands while laughing. And this is not an isolated incident. If I fetch her and she happens to be with a classmate, she’ll readily introduce us to each other. I find this uncanny since we never taught her to be this “diplomatic” nor did I saw this kind of attitude from other children her age or on much older kids. She will go to such extent as to make new pupils comfortable, like that new classmate; a transferee from the Philippines.

Bea: Hellooow, I’m Bea. What’s your name?

New classmate (looking towards her mother): Ma, di man ko kasabot sa iya.

Even teachers are surprise by her manner that they asked my wife if we came from a “political” family. But not everyone likes Bea’s sunny disposition. She once came crying to her teacher telling one of her classmates pinched her. It’s because the classmate doesn’t like to be called by her first name, a name adapted by her parents from a princess character of an animated movie. Bea keeps calling her by that name and the other child misconstrued it as taunting.

In fairness, I don’t blame the kid. I too would get grouchy and mad if my parents named me “Shrek”.