Times have really changed...

Earlier this week, my 5 yr old daughter came home from school with good news. She brought home her report card and was very anxious to show me the good grades. And they really were good grades. Nothing makes a Father prouder than to see his child developing as an improvement of the race. Honeslty, I wasnt a very good student when I was her age, I practically made a cue stick out of the pencil when I was taking the entrance exams to primary school. Didn't say too much of me as a student then, but obviously said a lot about me as a budding pool player =)

Of course, I told her that there would be a reward. Unfortunately, I found out that she already had something in mind... actually two things: 1) She wanted to go to Disneyland Hong Kong and 2) She wanted me to buy this toy car that we saw in the mall some months ago. It was actually more like a mini-car complete with battery-powered motor, gas and brake pedals, working steering wheel, and even some decal strickers on the fenders. This was the mini-car that kids could actually ride on and drive around. It was obviously expensive, maybe something too expensive to buy a 5 yr old girl. After all, I already bought her a remote control car a couple of months ago. Sure she played with it for a couple of weeks, but now it's just one of those "shelved toys".

Times have really changed. I remember the toys that we used to play with. Pieces of wood tied together to resemble guns, or flattened bottle caps to throw as shuriken. We had a blast destroying banana trees and gumamela flowers to make soap bubble blowers. Every kid in the block knew how to climb a tree, even the girls were potential competitors to getting the better guava or aratilis. We occassionally even dared to climb the big mango and duhat trees.

I remember being such a F'n headache to my parents by coming home covered with mud, or suddenly having flesh wounds and scratches from climbing a tree, or playing swords with sticks, or exploring dark basements trying to find spiders we could torture. I have several battle wounds from being such a bundle of joy then. I've been stitched in my head twice. First when I accidentally head butted an exposed nail while we were crawling under a house, and the second one was when a playmate tripped me while I was running... giving me a nasty gash on my chin.

I've had a couple of bike accidents as well. There was a time when I fell off a bike and hit my forehead on the concrete pavement and got cut pretty good. My friend and I freaked out when blood started to come out. I got on my bike and quickly kicked my way home. I passed by several people that were obviously shocked. I really couldnt blame them, I would probably be shocked myself if I saw a kid riding a bicycle with his face covered in blood. And then there was this time when I literally flew off of my bike while attempting to break the neighborhood speed record in a downhill ride. I ended up landing on a bed of rocks, my head hitting one of them just missing my left eye by an inch or so. I was literally knocked unconscious from the impact. I guess I have a pretty thick skull.

I also have a couple of stitches on my left arm from a wound I got when I fell off a mango tree. And then you have the "normal" wounds and cuts from just playing around the neighborhood. No special stories... just the usual gash from running, tripping, or wrestling with the other boys, or being hit by a stick, or a rock. Or just plainly being stupid about exploring places that were obviously not for kids. But then again, I think it was pretty common during those days for kids to get scratches or gashes from just being kids and playing around the neighborhood. Maybe not as much as the ones I got, but you know what I mean.

I think about all these and I look at my daughter and I tell myself... "What a fucking relief to know that they don't do the shit we used to do." Can you imagine seeing your kid run home covered with blood? Christ! She will never know how to climb a tree, no playing with sticks, or throwing stones, no wallowing in the mud to make artificial clay. HELL NO!!! I think the mini-car is starting to look more and more appealing...

It also looks like she might get the Disneyland trip too. She's been seeing the Disneyland HK from all the TV ads in cable. The truth is, we really have been planning to go to HK for a few days. My wife is planning on taking the NCLEX/RN there, and we've been thinking of spending a couple of extra days there with my daughter to double as our very own vacation.

Oh well... What the hell are we working our ass for anyway, if not to give our family the stuff we didn't have...