If you are one of those mothers who spend a lot of their time ferrying their children to piano lessons and birthday parties, this tip is for you: Traffic gives you a chance to spend quality time with the brats (I mean, those cute little angels).
1. Make use of this time to help them with school work.
2. Make them repeat the times tables over and over again until they know them by heart. Boring for all of you but apart from the obvious benefit of turning out a potential math genius, you would also be saving costs on Kumon lessons.
3. Hold mini-spelling bee contests. The winner gets to sit in front, honk the horn or do whatever silly thing gives him pleasure.
4. You can test them on general knowledge by having them name all the Philippine presidents and the year they were born or the five oldest churches in the whole world. Failure to do so wiill result in having to endure listening to elevator music on the car radio for the rest of the trip. Now that will really get them trying hard.
5. Now is also a good time to impart some family history. Start by tellling them that even with your definitely Pinoy looks, you probably have some mestizo blood in you because your great-great-great grandfather came from far away Andalulcia to grab some land here and marry a morena beauty. Unfortunately, you are no longer rich because his son squandered it all away in the cockpits.
6. Regale them with stories handed down from one generation to another to make them feel the family connection. Spice it up with some gossip about current relatives when boredom starts to creep in. You can set the ambience by playing your favorite 80’s music in the background. My dad used to have an 8-track tape player which ate up all his tapes but one. This he played over and over again so we were forever listening to Frank Sinatra. To this day, I can still hear the songs clearly in my mind. It haunts me so much that I even bought the album on Itunes. What a legacy!
7. If you’re not in a particularly good mood, remember that you have the kids trapped with you and you can do as you please. When your pesky preschooler keeps getting peskier, tell him that the handbrake is actually an ejection lever that can send him flying out through the sunroof if he doesn’t behave himself. I bet it will have an instant calming effect on him.
8. If your teenage son’s friend is hitching a ride with you, entertain him with stories that will make your son cringe with embarrassment. You would have gotten back at him for all the times he gave you grief over messy rooms and missed curfews.
There is so much you can do when you have the kids around. I have one word of advice though. In this high-tech age when all the kids are addicted to gadgets, make them surrender their earphones upon boarding. Otherwise, they will just tune you out and you will find yourself just chattering away to no one in particular.
How do you entertain yourself when you’re stuck in traffic? Tell us here at http://manila.coconuts.co/contribute or send an email to manila@coconuts.co.
Ilustration: Neil Agonoy
MORE WAYS TO DEAL WITH TRAFFIC:
– Stuck in traffic? 6 ways to exercise your brain
– Stuck in traffic? Tell us a joke
– Stuck in traffic? Bring and train a pet
– Stuck in traffic? Sleep
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