She Writes

This is a short story that Marielle wrote in her class for which she was chosen to be one of the two Spotlight Writers of the Week several days back. Her work was hung in the cafeteria and in the library for a couple of weeks. The girl next to her is a first grader. Marielle is in second grade.


The Day Everyone Disappeared
by Marielle Perolina

On January first I knocked on my parents’ bedroom door. No one answered. I thought Mom and Dad and my brother were grocery shopping. When I went to the school no one was there. So then I thought everyone disappeared.

I went back home to solve this disappearance thing. I went to the kitchen to get some food and saw a note from an alien.

I made a rocket and blasted off Earth. I saw the aliens with my family and everybody. The aliens saw me and locked me in a cage. I had this bomb and boom it went. I saw my parents again. I saw the brain controller. I controlled all the humans to my rocket and blasted all of us back to Earth.

When everybody was normal again I told them I had saved them. Everyone said I was a hero.


Anak-dotes

Papa: Marielle, would you like to raise a pig?
Marielle: I've never heard of anyone racing against a pig.
Papa: What are you talking about?
Mama: You were not listening. Papa said raise, R-A-I-S-E not race, R-A-C-E
Marielle: Oh, homophones...raise and race.
Mama: You two dont see eye to eye.
Marielle: Yes we do. Papa, look me in the eye.
Mama: Marielle it's an idiomatic expression.
Papa: It means we dont understand each other.
Mama: Someday your school will teach you about idioms.
Marielle: Medium?
Papa: No. Large.
(No. Small.)

-oOo-

Papa: Spell Missisippi.
Marielle: Easy. We just studied about abbreviation in school. M-R-S period S-I-P-I. Mrs. Sipi.
(Korek ka dyan!)

All in a Day's Work

I chatted with Tess yesterday. We don’t always talk but I think of her and Larry every once in a while. She asked how I’ve been and told her I’ve been busy. “Busy with what?” she asked again. “Hmm…kung anu-ano”, I said. I don’t follow a list of things-to-do and work rather sporadically. All I know is that I’m always engaged in something, which could be work, food, nap or something else. After my conversation with Tess I started thinking what really makes me busy sometimes. My regular day consists of routinary and some intervening work. Am I really busy? Well, this is how my normal day runs like…

Morning
I hate doing mornings but I have no choice when my alarm goes off at 6:15. I got to get up and help my kids get ready for school. Dean takes them to school at 7:15. I watch TFC while waiting for my hubby to come back. I make our breakfast at around 8:30. After breakfast together he’s off to work. Sometimes we go out for breakfast and that’s when I need to help out at Dean’s store. I go there to clean his desk, collect his mails and bills and check if the store has enough office and bathroom supplies. If not, I include them in my list the next time Dean and I go shopping.

Otherwise I stay home and do some housework. I hate doing dishes but I equally hate seeing my sink full. Laundry day is whenever our hampers are full with dirty clothes. Dusting off and vacuuming is when I actually see dust on the furniture and dirt on the floor. The kids are taught to clean their rooms but usually it’s not clean enough so I do it for them at least twice a week.

It’s also in the morning that I check online our daily expenditures and how much fund we have in the bank, and which bills need to be paid right away. Some bills I pay online and some over the phone. If bills are to be paid by check, I get the checks ready for mailing.

Believe me, my morning duties don’t end until afternoon.

Afternoon
I take a break by watching TV while eating lunch and waiting for the kids to come home. This is when I also think what to make for dinner. Sometimes Dean comes home for lunch which means I need to feed him too. I usually just give him subs or chicken salad.

The kids get home at around 2:30. And when they’re home, that’s when I get more occupied mentally, physically and sometimes emotionally too. They take a significant chunk of my time and attention. They call me practically every 10 minutes whether because they’re hungry, thirsty, need my help in their homework, they want to play outside, watch TV or whatever. Although it’s normal sibling fights can be the worst part of my day. Dean and I deal with the kids about this every single day. I also spend roughly a total of 1 hour/daily on discipline sessions with my kids, which sometimes involves tough love. It breaks my heart but I’m a firm believer of the saying, “spare the rod, spoil the child" and Proverbs 13:24 and 23:13-14.

And since Dean wants me to get my driver’s license ASAP, he sends me off driving with his worker, Luke from 3:00 to 4:00 on Mondays thru Thursdays. (Luke has stopped rating me so I don’t know if I’m getting better or not but hopefully I’ll be a licensed driver starting this summer or sooner. It’s always good to have a goal.)

The latest time for dinner is at 6:00 and my preparation time depends on what I’m making. The earliest is 4:30 and sometimes I don’t start cooking until 5:00.

Evening
Dinner is usually over before 7:00 which gives me and the kids enough time to do things together before their bedtime at 8:00. In case you wonder about the dirty dishes well, I dont do dishes after dinner but I rinse them so bugs dont start coming around. At 10:00, I'm already in slumberland.

So that’s how my day starts and ends.

I know it sounds like me and hubby don’t spend time together anymore. We do but of course, that part is not for “public distribution” anymore. Sa amin na lang yun siempre di ba?.

Anyway, like I mentioned there are things I do which are not part of my daily routine a.k.a intervening or spur-of-the-moment tasks. Just like this curtain for Marielle’s room that I’ve been trying to finish for ages now, and when I had to go with Dean to the auction yesterday.

I do whatever comes to mind. Sometimes I volunteer to make signs for Dean's store or out of the blue I decide to pick tangerines, oranges and lemons in the backyard before they all fall and waste in the ground. Now I have bottles of real and fresh citrus juices.

My days sound pretty hectic but not really because I work on my own sweet time. No boss. No pressure. I can choose to be busy or to nap all day. Either way, it dampens my mood to update my blog but obviously not today.