Overheard

Ate: Mommy, why does Barney have no ears, ha? Why?
Me: Uhmm… (stumped)
Kuya: Because he’s a dinosaur!

Kids. They ask the simplest and toughest questions. And they give out the answers to these, too. Ba’t nga ba walang tenga ang tabachoy na dinosaur na yun?

Speaking of ‘tabachoy’, Kuya & I were going over some 3-letter words from a game that my friend gave the kids. When it came to ‘fat’ there was this drawing of a, well, a fat lady with very wide hips.
Kuya’s guess when it came to that picture: “Uhmm… hippo?”. I couldn’t help laughing.

By the way, we are guilty of making fun of Kuya’s difficulty speaking Tagalog. Yesterday, his dev ped said that it was high time we practiced his Tagalog since his English is now fluent. He would definitely need it for school (and I agree). He can comprehend but, unlike his little sisters who can easily switch from one to the other (most of the time), he has much difficulty expressing himself. I tell him – pag Tagalog ka kinausap, Tagalog ang sagot. This morning I asked him, “Asan mga kapatid mo?”. He paused, hesitated and then said, “In the other room po.” Funny that he thought adding a ‘po’ would make it Tagalog.

I got a wake up jolt though about how hard this really must be for him when his Dad asked him why he didn’t want to speak in Tagalog. He said, “Because I’m scared”. I felt sorry for him and remembered times when I was a little girl and got too scared of speaking in English for fear of making a mistake (and being laughed at). He hears us laughing at his mistakes. I know now that what we find amusing is actually embarrassing on his part. Poor thing! Hubby thinks we should continue to speak to him in English. I think we should start talking to him more in Tagalog but not force him nor pressure him into answering in Tagalog. Doing so might cause him to clam up, talk less, and we’ll end up where we started. Hay.