I was doing some gift wrapping in the living room this morning when my nephew appeared in front of me. In his hands were toy vehicles he took out from the toy box.
My nephew carefully arranged the toys on the coffee table to simulate a rush hour traffic. A truck and a bus, longer than his arm lead the queue while plastic cars smaller than his fist line behind. The other half of the table is occupied by my gift boxes and wrappers so the toddler had little space to move his mini-traffic jam.
"Laro tayo," I said while putting away my stuff. Baby Lenin looked at my direction to let me know that it's okay to play with him.
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| December, 2012 |
We ended up putting the vehicles on the floor, where there was enough space to move around. There, I was making engine and honking sounds as my nephew wordlessly tugged his cars. I could have spent an hour keeping him company. But a child's play - experts say - move at a quicker pace. I wasn't done yet with his toys when he thought of doing something else.
I could have let the moment pass by without any reference to my own childhood. But just when we were about to put the cars on the ground, a flashback turned the child's play into a moment of reminiscing. I remembered a picture my mom kept in one of my photo albums.
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| Circa 1983 |
A long time ago, a kid used to play what my nephew does today when thoughts of traffic jam excites his imagination.