When 5 Is Not 5 | 2011

A week or so ago, Jakjak called me from our home phone. Casually, he asked me where I left the PSP. Then I told him it was probably on his mum's dresser (which he could not reach). I heard him shout through the handset, asking his mum to get it for him. After a brief pause, probably with the lack of anything else to ask, he mumbled, "So Dad, what's up?".


It was as casual as my wife talking to me.


He does this to us. Talking like he knows what he's talking about (although, most of the time he does know what he's talking about). There was a time on the bus that his teacher happened to be on board with us and he saw a bug. "Teacher, that's a moth ..." (When I was 5, I thought everything with butterfly wings were, well, butterflies).


And during one of their field trips (Singapore Duck Tour) which takes them across the Singapore river, he kept interrupting the tour guide. He would explain what the landmark that they were seeing was and then he would tell them about the things that he saw there.

Once, a kid took his toy from him without borrowing it (although they had been playing for a while already). He went to the kid's mum, told her about what the kid has done (mind you, he was not cross or anything), and he talked to the mum like he was the dad of some kid that had been bullied. Once the mum understood what he was trying to say, she told his son off and asked him to politely return the toy. On a similar occassion, he found another kid with the same happy meal toy that he had just gotten earlier (and one that we had patiently put the decals on). He went to the kid's mum, told her that the toy had stickers to be put on, got it from the mum and patiently stuck the decals on the toy (all the while explaining how we did it for his own toy). He casually did so, like somebody's big brother.


But at the end of the day, he cuddles with his mum, asks for his bedtime stories, drinks his milk and says his good night prayers. As casual as a 5 year old would.