The chatterbox story

A few days ago the young lady and I were looking at our old videos, snippets caught by my mobile phone or camera. I remember people use to point out on her heavy accent but truthfully, I hardly notice it. I suppose when that person is always around you, you don’t pick up on these things. Yet when we were watching these videos, we couldn’t help ourselves from laughing as she sounded like a typical British kid. She even remarked, “I sounded like Emma.”  Emma is our neighbour’s kid who is five years old, an adorable girl with blue eyes, brown hair and rosy cheeks.

I remember the day when she started her nursery/childcare centre, she barely spoke a word during the first few months. The carers said that it was normal for kids like her to be behaving like that as English was not their mother tongue. She understood their instructions and what was expected from her but she was just quiet, even when she played with her friends!

Then one fine day, out of nowhere she started to speak. Her vocabulary multiplied overnight and she talked so much that I nicknamed her ‘chatterbox’. She even had a mole on her lips soon after which I used to my advantage when she couldn’t keep her mouth shut, “if you don’t stop talking, moles will start popping.”

That’d keep her silent for probably ten minutes.

Those videos took me back to memory lane, a journey of a timid girl who has blossomed to a fine young lady. Occasionally she lets herself be a baby and let me treat her like one so that I don’t miss her much. We’ll let the cookie monster who lives under the duvet to come out and play or the fairy to take away our clothes from the washing machine and use her magic wand to make them clean. Somehow I feel she is helping me to find my inner child who was lost at a young age. Being with her makes me feel young at heart.