Isip Bata, Pusong Bata

I love kids.

I'm pretty lucky that I'm surrounded by quite a big bunch at home--mostly my nieces and nephews, all of whom I adore.

They are my bundles of joy. Their laughters are a true source of bliss to me. Their hugs give me a certain security--they tell me I am missed, I am safe, and I don't have reason to doubt it because theirs are the most, if not the only, honest hugs around. Their stories don't fail to amuse me. And boy, their questions are mind-boggling.

They are attention seekers, yes, but I realize that that only feeds my ego the pleasure it naturally needs: I am needed, badly, now!

Indeed, children can always bring out the best in us. To me even, they brought out the "good" in me.

I consider them the outlet of my goodnatured self, the beautiful in me -- that which I never saw, until they noticed it.

"Oh, you must be a girl Jesus!" said Patrick Madriñal (Ninong Oying's son), simply because I gave him company when he paid my family a visit many years back.

I got my first marriage proposal not from my boyfriend but from my eldest godson, John Patrick Sevilla. "Ikaw ang pinakamaganda sa buong mundo. Tayo na lang ang magpakasal." (You are the most beautiful in the world. Let's just marry.)

I almost resigned from my jobs when I heard my nephew, Morning Glor, said: "Alam mo Ninang Joy, ayokong umaalis ka." (You know, I don't want you leaving.)

Of course, they are kids, you would say.

But isn't it the best part of it? They are kids. Not only that they mean what they say, they only say what is true--the truth, that unless we become a child's heart, we will never appreciate.

So, ako, isip bata, pusong bata? (So, I, a child's mind, a child's heart?)

Modesty aside, yes. :)