Not Afraid of Children

Well, maybe a little bit. But not enough to run away from one.

There I was in Centre Point, one of Kota Kinabalu's most popular shopping centres, eagerly clutching a syrupy iced drink. I heard a happy little sound next to me, and looked down to see a small child beaming up at me: he must have been about two years old, judging by the confident mixture of Bahasa Malaysia and toddler-babble he was burbling.

Smiling absent mindedly, I made to jab my straw through the plastic film that sealed the cup. The next few things happened all at once.

The moment the straw hit the film the little boy made towards me at top speed. A brightly coloured sugary fountain spurted out from the pierced film of my drinking cup, and scooted backwards to avoid getting syrup on someone else's child in a mosquito-filled land. As I scooted back the child chased after me, and I ran backwards even faster trying to staunch the flow of palm sugar and coconut milk. I heard the kid's family laughing in the background as I ran backwards, myself covered in syrup, as the child gleefully chased after me with outstretched hands.

Eventually the father came and scooped up the giggling child, and the family started off. Feeling the need to explain myself, I called after them in English:

"I didn't want to get him all dirty!"

All of a sudden, the family fell silent and stared at me icily, smiles all gone. They turned around in silence, the little boy still reaching out towards me from over his dad's shoulder.

What.

At first I thought they didn't understand me and were a bit wary of me as a foreigner, but I realised shortly afterwards it's sort of worse than that: they were treating me as a harmless (hapless) passer-by at first because I sort of look like I could come from Malaysia, in the right environment (especially around my family). I think I shocked them when I instinctively spoke English, 'revealing' my true origins. Ah well. At least the little nipper didn't seem to mind. Even if I did nearly accidentally turn him into mosquito bait.

The Phone Call that Made My Month

I was always a little afraid of what my reaction would be the first time I received this sort of news from a close friend. I mean my real, inside reaction: I knew that my outer reaction would always be one of genuine joy, but I've always been scared that, inside, a selfish part of me would feel sad that an era has come to an end and that everything would be about to drastically changed- and maybe even a little jealous that I'm nowhere near that point in my life. I think I was the most afraid of feeling jealous, because I honestly didn't know if those sorts of feelings were brewing in me and I'd been ignoring them- as we sometimes do when we don't want to think about things.

So this evening when one pair of my friends told me they were expecting a baby, I was very pleasantly taken aback by how astonishingly FULL OF GLEE I was, both inside and out. In fact I felt so warm and fuzzy and happy I failed to stop myself from actually physically jumping around the room!

I'm so happy! Yes things will change, but things are always constantly changing anyway- we are no longer the children, the teenagers or even the youths we once were. Plus I can't wait to be Auntie Tash and help my friends out wherever I can and make a fuss over the baby.

What amazing news to receive at the end of winter, when the days are growing longer and the weather warms up. I wish both of my friends health and that everything goes smoothly. In the meantime, I'll keep my baking skills finely honed and start looking at tiny clothes for tiny people... and start wondering if I'll be the cool aunt or the weird aunt!

The Biscuit Button

What happens when you place a small child right next to a big red button?

So I was on the train (as a large proportion of my entries seem to begin) on my way to see some friends in Birmingham this weekend. I was feeling a tiny bit annoyed at my seating arrangements: I'd booked my tickets well in advance, requesting forward-facing window seats. I'd been allocated a small, cramped backwards-facing seat right at the end of a carriage facing a wall with no windows at all, like the naughty corner in a classroom. I was also seated right next to the broken, stinking toilets, which didn't improve my mood.

Thankfully about halfway through my journey I was given some on-board entertainment to cheer me up.

A few stops along the way a harassed-looking couple walked on, pushing along a four or five-year-old in a stroller. The kid was asking lots and lots of questions, as only a child can do. You probably know the sort of questions: the kind where the child isn't interested in the answer, only in asking even more questions. In any case, I'd already brightened up- I love it when children do this, and love it even more to hear how their parents deal with it.

The only space on the train left was the corner right next to me on the other side of the aisle, which happened to be the place for wheelchair users- complete with a great big tempting red button marked 'EMERGENCY' installed low down for easy access. By the time the couple and their toddler had made their way over, the train had already pulled off from the station.

Now, either the dad, who was pushing the stroller, just didn't see it, or he didn't make the connection between children and buttons in his head- but for whatever reason, he parked the pushchair so that the child was sitting right next to the emergency button.

To my glee, the first thing the little rascal did was press the button. A worried female voice sounded over the intercom.

"Hello to the passenger who pressed the emergency button- are you alright?"

There was a brief pause. Then, with the careful, clear and political pronunciation of a child who has been taught to be polite, the kid replied:

"Have you got any biscuits?"

There was a muffled mass guffaw as the surrounding passengers who had overheard (myself included) tried to stifle their laughter. The father snapped to attention, pulling the child in his stroller away and hastily apologising at the speaker as the lady laughed down the microphone "No love sorry, no biscuits!"

I quite agree with the kid though- I'm all for biscuit buttons on public transport.

~Fin~

Have You Ever Witnessed Bad Parenting...

... And really wished you could go up to the parent/ carer and slap them around a bit?

Today, after wandering around a shopping centre for a bit, I sat down on a bench for a breather. In front of me was a frozen yoghurt stall (the kind where you can choose all sorts of things for toppings), and to the left of me was a fancy cupcake stall.

I heard the loud, open-mouthed cough of a child who's not yet learned to cover their mouths (or never been told) and looked up warily- the cough belonged to a very large little girl, looking no older than six years old, accompanied by who I think was her grandfather. When I say very large, think about nearly twice as big as Honey Boo Boo. In short, the poor girl was quite obese.

At this point I wasn't really focusing on this, though: I was focusing on how the little girl had her face pressed up against the screen that shielded the yoghurt toppings, every so often producing a single, open mouthed cough in the direction of all the fresh fruit and things. It was an impressively disgusting cough: she opened her mouth wide and stuck her tongue out a little. Not pleasant when so close to food, but Grandad didn't comment.

'Fine whatever,' I thought. 'Just as long as they don't walk past me and the kid doesn't cough her germs near me.'

So of course, as you know the way the universe works around me, out of the many benches and many spaces there were, they walked straight towards me and chose to stop by my bench. The child sat right next to me. I tried not to visibly flinch when the girl coughed in my general direction.

I noticed that Grandad had ordered the girl a medium sized yoghurt with three toppings. Now, this frozen yoghurt place is always very generous with their portions and me, a grown woman, can only just about finish a small sized one with two toppings. The portion size of this pot was gargantuan- how was this little girl- a big little girl even so- finish all of that? Sure enough, the child had only eaten a few scoops before announcing that she had had enough.

What happened next horrified me more than a little.

The grandfather- not the little girl- pointed out the cupcake stand, and asked her if she wanted one instead. The girl, quite sensibly, asked him why. Grandad's response?

"They look really pretty, and they're probably healthier too. You can throw that away now, let's go get a cupcake."

And so I watched in stunned outrage for the now enthusiastic little girl as she chucked the largest part of her wasted frozen yoghurt into the bin and they both made their way to the cupcake stand. Of course, the girl plumped straight for one of the larger ones rather than the small ones.

There's not really much else I can say about that...

Children: High on Life

Children are miniature addicts, and their drug is simply 'Living'. Every day is an impossible, invincible high, peppered with occasional intermittent moments of tantrumous* lows. Some study somewhere done by someone** reckons that children laugh over three hundred times a day, whereas us gloomy adults only manage just under twenty.

I reckon a couple of kids let me borrow a laugh or two, today.

While doing the weekly shop this morning, I got a glimpse into someone else's life- the life of a parent of two little girls. They were about four and six years old- the oldest couldn't have been any older than seven. In any case, they were both at that stage of life where you have bundles of energy, a limitless imagination and where the world is your own personal playground.

The two girls were jumping around like grasshoppers and chattering non-stop, punctuating their animated conversation with plenty of sound effects. I glanced up at the dad, who was pushing the trolley, and had to stifle a sympathetic smile: he had bags under his reddened eyes, a slumping posture and a general Could-Have-Used-A-Few-Weeks'-Worth-Of-Sleep aura about him. Still, he'd automatically snap to attention if one of the bouncing girls was about to ricochet into the TV displays, or if one of them asked a genuine question (because sometimes children ask all sorts of things when it's clear they don't really care what then answer is- you'll answer them and they'll already be off like a rubber ball). So as exhausted parents of two young children go, he was pretty much as on the ball as you can get.

Just after he managed to deflect a potentially expensive bounce towards the electronics section, I heard him try to distract the girls by engaging them in proper conversation.

"Mummy said we need to get -x-, should we get it now? I think we should. Can you tell me which aisle you think it's down?"

There was a sudden, thoughtful silence. Then I heard one of the girls announce:

"I have decided that I want to be a feather."

And which much 'Wheeee!'-ing and 'Yaaaaaaay!'-ing the girls bounced off again.

Nice try Dad-Of-Two, but you just can't reason with these life addicts.

~Fin~

*When life hands you a situation that can't be summed up in one word... make a new one?

**Found on the internet and therefore completely irrefutable, of course...