Hello, Tim!
Today is a day for caretaking.
8/10, Friday
So far, I am adapting to the new routine pretty well, and I certainly welcome the extra forty-five minutes of sleep every morning.
Today after school (by the way, it was the last day of our official summer course, but we still have three days of math classes), I went straight to Sophie’s house. My mother cooked me a splendid lunch of tuna noodles and told me that Sophie’s tutor said that she didn’t finish her homework as the teacher ordered, and I knew that I had to have her assignments done as soon as possible. I brought her novel/textbook and her notebook to the dining table I was sitting at, enjoying my noodles. I sat her across me, told her that she had to finish the homework or she couldn’t leave the desk (potty breaks were allowed, though) and after I finished my meal, I took out my math homework I was supposed to hand in by evening and just started writing. Like my mom usually does when she wanted me or the kids to behave, you want a kid to see reason with you, you have to give them a reason to believe that it was not a wrong thing to do. She did stop fidgeting then, focusing on finding the words in her book to write down. Aiden, still free from the whole concept of a euphemism of ‘burden’, was roaming around, bouncing up and down the sofa like a normal kid, only that he was making loud siren voices with his mouth and the deafening clanks from the pot lid he was holding. I walked over, took away the lid, and politely asked him to be quiet. Now, I know it was a foolish thing to be logically explaining, ‘you wouldn’t want to be disturbed when you have something very important of your own to do, right’ and expect him to listen, but there would be more of those later. Mom then gave him her cell phone to watch YouTube for the sake of Sophie and her rare concentration at the desk.
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| Sophie, homework, at the desk... My my, what a rare scene! |
An hour or so later, and Sophie was down to one word left, but she couldn’t find it anywhere, so I went to her side and helped her with it, then, I heard a female shriek and some weird sound you hear when you are poking something gloppy from my mom’s phone, which at the moment, was held by Aiden. From past experiences, I knew instantly what the sound was from.
‘Aiden, give me the phone.’ I barked. When he didn’t budge, I rushed over and grabbed the phone from him, and on the screen, it showed some fan-made animation of Marvel villain maiming some random woman. The similar things happened in the past, and his parents had laid rules against that. It is still debatable whether watching violent videos can impose a bad influence on kids, but I clearly don’t approve of it. I gave the phone back to my mother, who was sitting in the corner and reading, and told him that he would not be getting some cell phone entertainment in a long while.
Aiden reacted, like any kid would, started to annoy the big people in any way possible. He started making the nerve-racking pop sounds with his mouth, and since I was trying hard to help Sophie with her work, but at one point, I snapped and said, ‘Stop it or I’ll go hit your mouth.’
At this point, you must know what happened.
He didn’t listen, and I did what I promised to do, and the instant I felt substantial skin contact, I regretted it. Kids are programmed to disobey at times, and I should have known better, even though the sister and the brother are half-spoiled kids and are often too disrespectful for anyone to bear. But still.
Aiden’s lips began to quiver, and that was the moment I panicked. I grabbed him, blabbered some sense into him, grasping on the nonexistent hope that he would see reason in such a scenario. He tried to shake loose my grasp of him, but I was afraid that if I just let him leave now, he would remember me as the ‘scary cousin who hit him on the mouth’ for years. What he did was all wrong and we all know it, but the fact that I hit him didn’t make me any better, either. He waved his hand frantically, clawed at my throat (yes, he happened to be a kid with abnormal strength. He’s only five, and he never lost a fight against his nine-year-old ), and I only release him only after he had calmed down a bit. Among the blabbering, I told him I was sorry that I hit him so hard, but he had to understand that what he did was wrong. He ran away and into his bedroom. My mom told me without his presence, ‘It’s okay. The kid needs to learn that he can’t always get what he wants. But next time, aim for the heinie.’
About thirty minutes later, Sophie walked out of their room with her brother. The boy no longer had tears, and I was a bit relieved.
Then, Sophie exclaimed that ‘He’s having a nosebleed!’ with her sharp voice.
I turned around and look at Aiden. It was true. From both of his nostrils trickled down two streams of blood. What I felt was not a surge of panic; I quickly grabbed a towel from the bathroom, soaked it with water and knelt before him. I regretfully wiped the blood off his face as Sophie, gleeful to have something to chant and chirp about. I couldn’t care about her more, for I was truly sorry that I just made my little nephew nosebleed. But then, when all cleaning was done, the little guy just blurted out, ‘I had nosebleed since morning’. ‘So that explains the dried blood at the nostrils.’ was the first thing that came to my mind. Otherwise, I was relieved that it was just a regular nosebleed instead of some parts severely damaged in the nose.
This is the end of this episode of kid catastrophe, and I think it was not only the kids, I also have a lot to learn.
Today is the last at-home tutor class. Due to the afternoon events, I was so worn out that I was only staring into nothingness sitting on the bench, waiting for the metro to come.
Tomorrow on, my home in Xindian would become a house in Xindian.
But Xindian, just like Keelung and Nanshijiao, will always be my place.
This is all for today.
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