Versatile future teacher

SAVE FOR a wrap-up midmorning meeting with Tere Pacis, a visiting Intel Philippines executive, I spent most of yesterday at home, no thanks to a virulent case of cold.

But the episode had its upside: more time with the kids, including my eldest daughter Sofia, a Grade III pupil at Grandview Elementary, which is a stone-throw away from our house. For whatever reason, she and her elder brother Jack Ryan (aka Budi) did not have class yesterday.

At such an early age, Sofie already wants to be a teacher just like her mom. At home, Pep is her pupil by default. Outside, other younger playmates become her students when they playact at the adjacent multipurpose center. Last summer, she egged me for a lesson plan and portable blackboard when I called from the National Bookstore at Glorietta. Yesterday, she produced their report cards, prepared her lesson in manila paper, and showed me her makeshift office downstairs.

Among the siblings, Sofie is known to be papa's favorite. Which is not really true as I do love and treat them equally. But on the other hand, my actuations might have betrayed reality nonetheless: she is the first daughter in a family that did not have one since I was born 38 years ago. And as most eldest daughters are, she dutifully looked after me the other night when I came home most ill--bringing me my dinner, putting and replacing the hot compress on my forehead, and such other little things--as she did with her mother when I was not around last week.

Of a boyish comportment, with curly black hairlocks, a face that is from my mother's and a dusky skin that is my wife's, Sofie is not naturally gifted in academics as her Kuya EK is; but this, she more than compensates with extraordinary diligence.

This virtue, I feel, will serve her very well. On the way to LCC Mall last Saturday, we passed by the newly opened David's Salon at Avenue Square. Pep asked what the balloons were for so I explained why. When we finally reached the Toyland section, Sofie opted for a set of miniature medical kit to add up to their toys. When I asked her why, she said: So that in the morning I will be a teacher, in the afternoon a doctor, and in the evening a beautician in David's Salon.