LUIS AND DADA

There's a new "Dada" in Luis' life ... his cousin, Ananda! We visited her last week and ever since then, Luis has been nagging me about when we were going to visit Ananda again. At the end of a day, he'd say all of a sudden, "Oh! We forgot to go to Ananda's house today!" So finally, last Tuesday, I called up their house and talked to Ala (my cousin), asking if Ananda was going anywhere that afternoon. After consulting with Ananda's mother (hehe...that's Erica, also my cousin), Ala said that Luis could come and play with Ananda. "Yey!" exclaimed Ala.

That day, Luis and I had a few other things to do before going to Ananda's house. I promised him we'd watch Ice Age 2, and do a little "shopping-shopping" at the mall. But when we rode the car, Luis asked instantly, "Are we going to Ananda's house now?" And when he was being makulit, and not wanting to leave the store because he wanted to spend a few more minutes on the XBOX, I told him, "But we're going to Ananda's house now!" and he instantly left the XBOX and walked towards the exit.


When we finally got to Ananda's house, Ananda was the first one at the door when we rang the doorbell. She immeidately pulled Luis in and commanded him to take off his shoes (Erica says she is the shoe police, or something like that). Luis kept his socks on, and this seemed to cause some mild stress in Ananda. She pulled me to go to Luis and told me, "Tanggal medyas!" It's funny, because when Luis came here, he was more used to Filipino (he couldn't really talk at that time), but now, there are a lot of Filipino words that he doesn't understand anymore. I had to tell Luis, "Darling, Ananda wants you to take off your socks." I then told Luis to put his socks in his boots so they wouldn't get lost. The ever-obedient Luis dutifully pulled his socks off, then Ananda got her mom's pair of boots and started stuffing Luis' socks into them! I had to tell her that I meant Luis' boots and not her mom's boots!

It's interesting to watch Luis without Diego around. When his kuya is there, Luis is the one who breaks all the rules and Diego is the one who tries to enforce them. Now, with Ananda, Luis is so rule-conscious, telling Ananda what to do and telling "the authorities" if she is not doing what he perceives to be the right thing. (Oh my gosh, my boys are sooooo like me!!!) They got into a few arguments, but generally got along well. In fact, after we had dinner, we adults were sitting around the dining table, and the two kids were sitting on the floor, breaking out in maniacal laughter. Only they knew what was so funny.

When the sun was not too hot anymore, Erica, Mio, the two kids and I went to the park and played with bubbles. Luis found some boys to play with in the park. He found a bigger boy to play with. He would copy what the boy was doing on the playground equipment. When he wanted to call the attention of the boy, he would say, "Hey boy, look at me!" The other boy, although a bit hyper, was quite nice and treated Luis in a nice way. When it started getting dark, we started walking back. Well, most of us did anyway. Ananda decided to slither her way through the grass, saying "Nake! Nake! (snake! snake!)" She also started making her own dance steps, running around the big field of grass.

Again, it was a fun, relaxing day for all of us (I hope it was the same for my hosts!)

for those of you with access to my Multiply account, I have more pictures there of Dada and Wigi