I love kids (infants and toddlers most especially, and including preschoolers) and I really try my best to show patience to them although there are just some who make me wanna give up at times. My nephew Zach is one of them (5 years old). He can be cute and funny and he used to be such a darling; nowadays however, he's usually the strain on our natural kindness, goodness and patience but that isn't true all the time. Our great, fun, and happy moments together happen whenever we play and do things together. Being a kid at heart, I still appreciate some children's shows so we used to watch TV together. He likes watching Artzooka best with me, because aside from enjoying the show per se, I have this feeling that he thinks I'm this good artist who can recreate the stuff Jeremy had invented and we can do it together and I can teach him how...haha. In fairness to me, my artsy-fartsyness and inclination to arts and crafts has enabled me to make some of Zach's high-scoring and aesthetically pleasing school projects. I'm not good at drawing but I can make decent, understandable images of objects (pre-school level..haha) and I enjoy coloring, which is also one of the activities Zach and I used to do together. I deal with him best as a pseudo-ninang-playmate and he's most behaved when we're playing together (with my signature threat: I won't play with you again..haha) so although I was usually busy, we had some of my free weekends scheduled exclusively for playtime that lasted for hours! Here are some of the activities we did together:
* Watched TV (Nickelodeon, Playhouse Disney) and at times, his collection of Backyardigans (way more gay than Barney in my opinion, haha) and other sing-a-long videos, plus Finding Nemo one afternoon
* Coloring- more than his buddy, I'm his coloring teacher!
* Cutting pictures and letters- he was reprimanded for wrecking his compilation of kindergarten test papers and some of his books..haha
* Q & A and word games- from where can you find?/I spy to places/fruits and vegetables starting with the letter __ to trivia about cars, dinosaurs, and anything under the sun from his encyclopedia
* Reading books-cookbooks, my choice:)
* Playing with his toys- building castles with lego, answering the drills in his laptop, Logico, matching pictures, drawing and writing in his erasable board and so much more (he has a LOT of toys, those that stimulate the mind mostly; and with a kid for a playmate, the play possiblities are endless!)
* Playing with boxes, pens, pillows, and anything we can play with Artzooka style (guess what figure I made)
Finally, my favorite activity with him (sounds like my favorite part by Dora and Boots..haha) for all time
is Play Doh! This is also what the pictures below are about. We began in our Play Doh journey as newbies making burgers, pasta, and barbecue with the play tools then serving them to the people in the house as if running a party; then, as we evolved and got tired of making the same things week after week, we chanced upon the Play Doh website through an ad on tv and it has been bookmarked on Ate's laptop since. Here's my attempt on Zach's request for a unicorn:)
with Zach, who was more than pleased with my work....bata talaga...haha
As you can see, we had pictures taken of the different angles of my PlayDoh "unicorn" although I don't think it adequately looks like a unicorn in any of these images...haha...I actually tried to bargain with Zach at first since I'm better at making a pizza slice or say, any other not too elaborate inanimate object. Not that I meant for my unicorn to look actively running (I wish!) but even with drawings, it's really more difficult for me to create images of animals and human beings with all the limbs and details on the face. Zach was happy with my work though (success!), because I'm still better than him (21 vs. 5 y/o, PARTIDA!:) I still wonder why he wanted a unicorn, but on second thought, parang mas mahirap ata ang dog or cat so buti na lang unicorn...thank you Lord for saving me from shame...haha
I'm all techie and domesticated these days, with pc, psp, and kitchen utensils keeping my hands busy. Still though, I miss playing with my hands, building and creating things, with my pleading, ever excited playmate! I don't have PlayDoh with me now and I don't intend to buy one (since buying one would just make me buy all the other colors:) but I still have my preschool level coloring book (bought it in college), and my crayons and color pencils. The only missing ingredient is free time!
Nowadays, my siblings and I keep ourselves entertained with Scrabble on weekends. We're on a 5-match tournament, and I'll be sharing about it once we've finalized the stats and determine the loser (it isn't just about winning you know..haha). My artsy-fartsy hobbies give me a different kind of happiness (they feed joy to my soul:), but the important thing is that with all the work I'm doing, I still get to PLAY, with the people I enjoy playing with the most- my siblings! It does wonders to a child's development, but for busy bee young adults like me, it's a cure for the common burning-out life, and I consider every precious playtime (joketime included!) a BIG BIG Blessing!:)
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