Adorable

Was on my way home last night when this couple and their kid came into the train. I was standing near the poles at the door, a hand on the pole and the other holding onto my bag. So the family stood beside me. The mother was talking to the father and she went on and on. Poor kid with nothing to do first started circling the pole. Then he attempted to hold the pole as high as he can. My hand was where he aimed at. So he touched my hand said 'catch you', and he laughed. A really adorable-looking boy so I decided to 'play' along. If you know, the pole splits into three parts so that more people can hold. Well, we played 'catching' that way. When his hand was on the pole mine was, I changed and he followed suit. A test of his reaction. And it was either me catch him or he catch me. The thing is everytime someone got caught, he will laugh out loud. Very real kind of laughter. Not the laugh that you gave when someone said a joke and you laughed because it made sense (and politeness) to. Or the cold laugh. Or the cynical ones. It was a real laugh. That got me playing on with him. And 5 minutes into our game, his mother was still ranting on to the father, taking no notice.

He got bolder and looked at me in the eye. Catching was no longer fun. We were playing faces. Making weird faces to each other and seeing who can sustain from laughing longer. Of course, most of the times he lost and started gigglig first. Really his laughter is captivating.

In between, there was this Indian guy behind me who perhaps had noticed me playing with the boy. He had a newspaper in hand and played around with the boy too. Occasionally he would suddenly stomp forward in attempt to frighten the boy. Again, what you hear is the boy's happy laughter.

And amist all this playing around, the mother was still rattling on. Both parents did not care about the boy. Neither did they showed satisfaction that their boy was happily entertaining fellow passengers. Basically the boy seemed non-existant to them. It's quite sad because I would feel parents should try their best to spend time with their kids. If the kid is fine alone, and they needed to talk, the minimum they could do was look at their kid now and then. Ang moh parents would let their kids play alone, and they ALWAYS smile at the strangers playing with their kids. That's more like it!

Another thing was I pitied the husband. The wife was rattling on and on about gossip and stuff, that if I was him, and in a tired mood, I'll probably be so irritated. Some females just like to go on and on and on...