Nanay Told Me Not to Trust Doctors

Meet my mother.  Well, not really, as all signs point to her being in Nueva Vizcaya telling the little brother to feed the chickens and to stop wasting all the Scotch Tape on yet another TARDIS model (because we’re that sort of family), and to your sitting in front of a computer screen (you procrastinating procrastinator, you) reading heaven knows what about heaven knows who.

Heaven must be really smart.

You know who else is smart?  Marie Curie.  But as I don’t know her personally and as the number of photographs I have together with her is around the neighborhood of zero, I’m going to talk about Nanay.

Nanay asked me to point to my nose. I was no child prodigy.

Nanay was my first teacher.  That is to say, she ran the whole teacherly mothering routine daily with me and my sister at home and, as an added bonus, dragged us both to preschool five days a week to run her motherly teaching gimmick.  She got paid for only one of these rackets.

Preschool was fingerpainting and feeding sliced bread to the giant goldfish lurking in the nearest pond.  Preschool was fighting with a classmate over a butterfly costume I wanted for a school play, and later realizing that the one I had first was prettier. Preschool was making Play-Doh mangosteens I was not allowed to eat.  Preschool was banging two sticks together while singing “M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!”  Preschool was Ghostbusters with capes and pompoms.

Home school, on the other hand, was learning to read The Lorax up to the page where the Once-ler tosses the Truffula seed.  Home school was singing “Alouette, gentille alouette” and later finding out that it was about plucking the feathers off of every last bit of a bird’s body. Home school was reciting The Spider and The Fly over and over and over and over and over again until I got every last word perfect.  Home school was recording cassette tapes of me and Ate singing nursery rhymes, with Tatay in the background saying “Anong [nόd] your head?”  Home school was Sam Pig and Custard the Dragon and turning a page whenever Tinkerbell rings a little bell like this: *ting*.

The most memorable image I have of Nanay by far is her in a brown paisley blouse with a matching calf-length skirt, her hair done up in a ponytail (she had curls back then), and a faux alligator-skin purse in her hand.  One of the preschool classes was performing a skit for a school program, and she was THE lady.

Miss Lucy had a baby,
His name was Tiny Tim.
She put him in the bathtub
To see if he could swim.

He drank up all the water,
He ate up all the soap,
He tried to eat the bathtub,
But it wouldn’t go down his throat.

Miss Lucy called the Doctor,
Miss Lucy called the Nurse,
Miss Lucy called the Lady
With the alligator purse.

“Mumps!” cried the Doctor,
“Measles!” cried the Nurse,
“Nothing,” said the Lady
With the alligator purse.

Miss Lucy punched the Doctor,
Miss Lucy knocked the Nurse,
Miss Lucy paid the Lady
With the alligator purse.

Mothers, as they say, know best.  Mothers with alligator purses, however, by virtue of calling things as they are and all-around grade-A awesomeness, know slightly better.

Advertisement