BEST GIFTS

IN my birthday last week, my kids surprised me with their personally made birthday cards, which they handed me with hugs, kisses and chuckles early in the morning on the 21st. That’s what I meant in my previous blog that there are good reasons to celebrate your birthday, just as there many reasons to establish a good attitude in life. Let me say then that receiving greeting cards from the kids is the best gift ever a father could have on his birthday. 

My three kids are a good bunch of inspiration for me. Seeing them in the morning completes my arsenal for staying on, moving on, and hanging on in every setting of my life. Of course, I flare up sometimes, scold them, and find less time with them. But I will not dwell on that. A child is a child, sometimes naughty, demanding, and sometimes sweet; as father must always be a father, and always in him a soft spot or a weak spot. As a father, I could be so busy with my daily schedule and routine that I could have become so clueless.

To my kids, there’s no better way to express their love than to put them in words and colorful artworks. Here are my kids’ recent masterpieces.

This one is from N-yel, my eldest.

Yes, that two photos are Manny Pacquiao’s which he (or with Mom as co-conspirator) had clipped from an old newspaper. My wife and my kids love to tease me that the world-renowned boxing champion and I are like peas in a pod, especially when I sport long hair with a split on the middle and bangs hanging on the sides, and when I made myself unshaved for two or three weeks. But read on, did my son scribble the word handsome? But I rather take the whole message to mean, “Hey, my dad’s the champ!”

This one is from Dudoy, my second child.

This boy hasn’t grown up his love for dinosaurs. Not yet. He still loves to collect dinosaurs, to watch dinosaur movies, to read about dinosaurs, act like dinosaurs, and think like dinosaurs. So what do you expect when he thought of something to represent me on my birthday card? A T-rex with a big mouth ready to devour its prey would be it (but instead he cropped my picture and drew a cake as prey this time). Now I realized my dinosaur lover of a son loves burger than anything else. But for “dinosauring” me, I won’t treat him not even a bite of his burger. Just joking.

And this one is from Eya, my youngest.

My girl with a toothless grin loves to write love notes and to doodle on paper scraps and on pages of her notebook. (Last time, I heard her Mom telling her to stop sending sweet-nothings to her classmates, one of them a boy.) And for this one from her, she used a colored paper and a scented pen for a change (why not, it’s her dad’s special day). The erasures must have been due to her brother’s editing. And the unusual cut on the corner must be hers, because she still messes up her artwork with the scissors.

Just like their other letters and impromptu cards I received from them, I will keep these cards in my personal drawer. I know that anytime soon, they no longer do this for me or for their Mom. One day they will no longer recognize themselves in what they wrote. The he-he-he’s and emoticons, the dinosaurs, and scented notes with erasures may soon be a thing of the past, and they may not be as sweet as they do now. And like many of my fondest memories, they’ll be anchored on things that no longer exist. But I just hope they won’t stop sending me those handwritten cards.

My kids love to write sweet-nothings and flaunt their creativity when they make cards for their Mom on her birthday or on a Mother’s day, and for each one’s birthday, and during Christmas. Even when there is no occasion at all. My youngest, when she has the mood, draws stick figures with I love you’s and I miss you’s naturally matched with heart shapes and smileys. Then, pointing at the figures for me to see, she chatters with her sweet little voice “This one is you, Daddy, this one is Mommy, this is Love, this is our house, etc.”