Category Archives: Children’s Stories

Grow Rich, Play Monopoly

Under the Sun, Playing

Under the Sun, Playing

It’s a funny thing. I have known Monopoly since I was a young kid. I enjoyed it, yes, and tried hard to get playmates to play with me but we usually get bored early in the game so we end up, always, not finishing it. We did not even care who won. But I did not know it could have such an impact on me. It was just a board game, after all, and board games do not really teach skills. Apparently, this one does, and I learned to look at Monopoly – and games – in a new light.

Fast forward to 20 years after. I read Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Kiyosaki said in that book that one can learn the basics of finance with Monopoly, such as “trade four green houses for one red hotel.” I could not believe my eyes as I was reading, I know this game! I immediately downloaded it to my Treo and played, and played, and played.

At home, at night, at traffic when my car is at a standstill – every chance I got, I played. And then, finally, I got it.

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Growing Up Yoyow: A Maltese Tale

With Wings, Can Fly

With Wings, Can Fly

It seemed to be too much of a responsibility, I thought.  We could not do it, I reasoned.  The expense will be considerable, I reckoned.  Uhm, ah, no, I decided.

So I said, “Sorry C, no puppy.”

I like dogs.  I grew up with several of them, in fact.  Blenda, Starsky and Stardust, my pre-pregnancy dachshund who bows (promise!) whenever she sees me.  But no, not this time, it is too much work, the house would smell and financially, I thought it would not make sense.

But ever since C requested for a puppy as her special Christmas present, the germ of needing (okay, wanting) one had caught on.  We had no choice but to capitulate.

On the eve of Christmas, we held a thin, sweet, magnificent, white, yielding Yoyow in our arms.

Yoyow, Apple of Our Eyes

Yoyow, Apple of Our Eyes

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A Summer to Remember

Hand to Heart

Hand to Heart

My daughter comes up to me and says, “Mom, I want to rest this summer.”

I shake my head in amazement.  I look beyond her and am transported to hazy images of a time not long ago when I wanted to be ballerina, dancing in my pink tutu, crown on my head, traipsing over imagined ledges and leaping.  Leaping! But money was spread too thinly over four kids and there was just no money for ballet classes, or extra classes for that matter. I can even see my mother and her worn out face, hear her “No”, touch her despair, wonder why in my looking glass I seemed nonchalant.

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