Smart Aleck Winner Abu

Last night, I went to visit my cousin’s house and look at Chelly my baby who has grown fatter after about 10 days. My Ate Ria also gladly told me that one of our younger cousins, Abu, won in a Math Quiz Bee.

When I heard the news, I thought she was just joking. I then played with Chelly for 10 minutes more then asked again, “hindi nga? nanalo si Abu?!”

Abu is our 4-year old cousin who was born when he was only 7 months old in his mom’s womb. My aunt almost died during that delivery. He was a pahabol Millenium Baby, born December 2000 when he was expected by the whole family two months later.

They say, that if a baby is not able to complete the whole 9 months of pregnancy in the womb, it’s either he/she is born with defects, be it physical or mental. Or, its the other extreme end of the rope, meaning, the child will be super smart. And I seriously think Abu was one of the latter. His real name is Joash Aleck, with me picking the Aleck part, from the expression “smart aleck”. I know that phrase is kinda negative sounding, but I wanted to give its definition a new twist. For some weird reason though, Abu has lived up to his name, he is literally a smart aleck, even at a young age of 4.

Why do I say that? Well, for starters, Abu never baby talked. I never heard him say a bulol word in his life. It was like he woke up one day and he can talk, straight, like a 7 year old kid. He’s a bit of a spoiled brat too, and when he doesnt get what he wants, you can expect to hear something really creative from him. Like there was this one time when my grandparents had a so-called fight, and my Lola jokingly told Abu that my Lolo is asking her to leave the house and go back to their old house. To which Abu responded to by walking up to our Lolo with arms folded asking “bakit mo pinapalayas si Nanay? alam mo na ngang luma na ang bahay nila dun!”. Imagine a 4-year old saying that to a 76-yr old man. Unbelievable. Moreso, to end the story off, when they happened to pass by that “old house” of my Lola, and my Tita (Abu’s mom) pointed it out to him, as soon as they reached home he immediately ran to my Lola and said “Nanay (we call our Lola, Nanay), eh pwede pa naman pala yung bahay niyo eh!”

All these and more, we talked his mom into entering him in school a bit earlier than expected. So at 3 yrs old, Abu is already in Nursery school (like me!). Of course, him being the youngest and smallest in the class, he didn’t necessarily take school seriously yet. But a year after, now that he’s in Kindergarten I, Abu seems to be stepping up, starting with being the 11th in his class. Not much of an achievement right, but we were told he is particularly good in Math, thus the Quiz Bee.

According to my aunt, when she was trying to prepare Abu for that contest, Abu won’t cooperate so it was such a surprise that the little boy won. My sister Bonzai talked to her on the phone and he proudly told her he won, but with a mistake in the Easy round. Then my sister asked him “champion ka ba?”, to which he immediately retorted back “hindi! WINNER ako! WINNER!” Hahaha. Smart aleck talaga.