Out of this World

Seems we're not the only ones fascinated and perplexed by the kid. Last week, we met her teacher along with the school principal at school. Conversation pieces I remembered:

In my years of teaching, this is first time I felt frustrated. Despite all my efforts, it seems I couldn't break through to her. A certain speaker at a conference I attended spoke of a small percentage of children who were different from the norm. I get the feeling that I've finally met one. The consensus among all school teachers is that she is probably one of the nicest kids in school. (Uhmmm) Despite her difficulties, she always has a ready smile and is genuinely happy. She always does things double-time, always in a hurry. Her world revolves around super-heroes and always assesses the lessons according to its relevance to the comic characters her mind is often preoccupied with.

Asked for comment, I thanked them for their patience and asked them to not lose trust in their abilities as educators. We're constantly re-assessing our options and trying to instead see where her interests and strengths lie and go from there. Above all, just seeing her healthier, with very few medical incidents compared to the last school year, is already a great victory in itself. Can't really say we're on to something but there goes Zaki for you. Only to find out Friday night that she has fever and after three plus days, is still in process of recovery. Better but still not sleeping as soundly as she normally does. Strange. Call her condition 'guarded' - as if all her days isn't termed as such.

Boredom Means Cruelty for Kids

First of all, I'm not going to argue for absolutes because I'm quite sure many consider ourselves quite normal even without the so-called progressive parenting that we rarely enjoyed as children. Point I want to make is that we should not rest until we can give the best for our kids - not in terms of material wealth but of course, little things that we could tweak to make better caring, creative and fearless human beings.

Zaki looks forward to spending weekends at my parent's house. She looks forward to seeing her uncles and even takes snacks from her own loot to bring as gifts. But most of all, she gets to see and play with her younger cousin, Gabby - precocious, naughty kid if ever there was one. Still, Zaki loves being with him and is patient enough not to beat the crap out of the little guy when he is being too hard-headed.

And the past weekend is no exception. In fact, more than ever, it further highlighted the fact that kids need to be social and playing with others seems to be the most valuable expression of this. We know Zaki can be such a glutton at home often raiding the fridge for food or downing an average of a liter of milk on a daily basis. But this weekend, she hasn't even finished a 250ml bottle and barely slept through the night, waking up before dawn already scouting if someones awake to begin the day. Obviously, my mom was up and the two headed off to buy pandesal before sunrise. You should see her face light up despite the lack of sleep. If that's not passion, I wonder what is.

But then all good things come to an end. Making the usual goodbye gestures, I get the sense that Zaki was thankful for the opportunity and was living in the moment, not worried about the boredom about to face her once again being alone at home with yaya.

Try as we can, I don't think wifey and I staying at home can really make up for it. Having another kid is entirely out of the question, too. It's a dilemma we will have to wrestle with given our limited resources. Hope Zaki accepts our apologies.

Happiness is ...

Zaki's new obsession is Charlie Brown and she's willing to have her head shaved. Maybe someday. For now, all she can do is wear yellow shirts and try to sing-along ...