The three Stooges

My cousin Nancy and her hubby Obet were visiting for the summer with and their three little boys -- RapRap (4), Ayem (5) and RonRon (6).

Imagine Dennis, the Menace, then multiply that by ten. That's what *each* of those boys is like. They do whatever they want, they demand what they want, they scream if they don't get it, they fight with each other, they don't do what they're told and they do what they're forbidden.

The day after I arrived, we came back from the hospital and the three rushed out to meet the tricycle and held out their hands upon seeing me with my purse out to pay the driver. Auntie Eying said, five pesos was enough so I placed five-peso coins into each hand.

The next day, the same thing happened, but, this time, I asked them why I should give them coins. They couldn't answer, but they kept insisting that I give them money. So I told them to sing. RonRon was only too willing, so he started singing and his siblings joined him. And they sounded good too! They earned a peso each that day. The adults were laughing.

On the third day, I took them to the corner store for a treat. Ayem ran ahead and picked a candy before the rest of us got there. He had already torn the wrapper, but, when he saw that RonRon picked a gum with a temporary tatoo, he wanted the same thing. We told him that he had to stick to his original decision because he had already opened it. He threw a fit. So I said he wasn't going to get anything, except his original choice. We started heading back. He refused and sat on the street, whining and screaming and crying. But while they had their backs turned, I went back into the store and got one more gum and hid it in my purse so I used that as bribe to get him to quiet down. *sigh*

My grandmother has her own little house built to US standards. The little kids were forbidden to go in it because they bothered my grandmother. But, since my grandmother was in the hospital, we allowed them to come in only if they behaved. Well, they rarely behaved and, when we ordered them out as punishment, there was always a struggle. At one point, they wanted to come inside and they were pushing their way in, even as their cousin Vincent and the help JhonJhon blocked the doorway. So I intervened and got them to sit on the bamboo couch outside the door and told them that they may come in only if they sat there quietly for 10 minutes. And they did. Even their mom laughed when she saw why it was suddenly quiet.