raising a boy – The Storytela

Aug 22, 2016May 1, 2017

Life With My Boy: Time No Be Money o!

Growing up, we heard the famous lyrics of the song:
Time na money o! Time na money.

In plain English, Time is money.

Well, for my four year old, Time is whatever and whenever he wants it to be.

Anything that took place between yesterday and when he was born is referred to as having happened yesterday. So consider this classic:

Ikem: Mummy, yesterday, we went to the Jungle and we see Monkeys jumping jumping from one tree to the other…

Me: (Surprised and thinking real hard) Yesterday??? But we were home yesterday. ..

That was when it hit me, we had gone to the ‘Jungle‘ in December (our trip to NCF). LOL. Having understood, it helps me explain to people when he says something like ‘yesterday when I was a baby…’ stuff like that.

I thought we were just battling with the past until the future came up. Here’s another classic:

Ikem: Mummy when are we going to Shoprite?

Me: Tomorrow

Ikem: Is this tomorrow?

Me: (LOLING) No this is today, tomorrow is the day after today.

Ikem: Aha! Yesterday, we went to Shoprite and I ride a horse and ….

Phew! This was something that happened earlier in the year, I just sat listening and nodding my head.

Well, if you say time is money, try explaining that to a four year old.

Feb 15, 2016Feb 16, 2016

Life With My Boy: The Voice Of God

My son dreads cutting his nails, he calls the nail cutter ‘Cutting Wound’ and declares that it’s a dangerous object.

Or maybe I should say that he acts like he dreads cutting his nails when he is at home. This is because when I have to get an Assistant teacher in his school to help (after loosing several fights at home) he would sit properly, stretch out his hands without any tantrums, allow the teacher cut his nails and then say ‘Thank you Miss Alice‘ or ‘Thank you Miss Taiwo‘ depending on who is helping out.

One day, I insisted that he would cut his nails at home while he was awake and we struggled to no avail, so I decided to turn to the jungle for help one last time.

I told him he would go to the Jungle and live with animals, since he wants to grow claws in the place of nails. He kept laughing and didn’t budge. I took him out of the house to the staircase and locked the connecting gate. He kept laughing thinking it was a game. I then told him to walk down the staircase and out into the compound/jungle. As he began his descent, I made everyone go inside and then I made a very loud noise ‘moooooooooo’ (I sincerely didn’t expect this to work).

Next thing I heard was Ikem screaming and running up the staircase, ‘Mummy open the door, the Gorrilla is coming’, please open the door’.

I tried so hard to stifle the laughter, the gate had openings so we could see ourselves. I said I would let him in if he was ready to cut his nails. Anyways, it worked and we had a peaceful nail cutting session. Afterwards, I stuck to cutting his nails when he was asleep.

Fast forward to this weekend, we are his room working on his school project, and I noticed his nails were due for a cut.

‘Ikem, you need to cut your nails.’ I said

‘No Mummy, God said I should not cut my nails’. He replied.

‘Eh’?! I wasn’t sure I heard him well. ‘God cannot tell you not to cut your nails’. I replied.

‘I heard the voice of God, he told me not to cut my nails. Jesus said I should not cut my nails’. He replied smiling back at me.

‘Heyyyyy!’ I was short of words. ‘God can’t say that, it’s not in the Bible.’ I insisted.

‘The Bible of God says so, Pastor Chris said I should not cut my nails.’

Sincerely, I just left the matter at this point. To be revisited when he falls asleep.

THE END.

Dec 21, 2015Dec 20, 2015

Life With My Boy: I’m not a Gentleman

My son came over to the office from school so I bought him some Akara balls (bean cakes) to enjoy while I rounded up on work for the evening. He got quite hyperactive while eating the Akara and some dropped on the floor.

Mum: Ikem, don’t drop Akara on the floor, eat like a gentleman. Are you a gentleman?

Son: No, I’m not gentleman, I’m Ikemsinachi.

I just had a good laugh first before I started the lecture

Mum: You are a gentleman okay? You eat your food gently.

Son: Okay. I’m a gentleman, I will not eat like a ‘Monkey do’, a ‘Monkey do’ eats banana like this (demonstrates and makes sound awum awum awum.)

Thankfully, we didn’t have more pieces of the Akara fall to the ground.

Picture courtesy of http://www.wivestownhallconnection.com