Five years ago today, I held a baby up to the morning sunlight and marvelled at the tender and perfectly plump morsel of flesh yawning and quivering in my arms. How fair and fragrant. How rosy and robust. How soft and supple. I laid claim to all the poetic license my shellshocked mind could call forth after a harrowing three days of induced labor. Finally, he was mine to actually hold, all 7.11 pounds of him.

How eager I was to take him home with me and proudly show him off to the world. And so I did. Often the world avoided me, tired of my show-and-tell pride. How I hungered to cosset and cradle him for countless days and endless nights. The part about "endless nights" did come to pass, and at the end of ten months, the idea of sleep seemed truly alien.

I guided him and steadied him, overseeing every minute detail of his growth. I lectured him and hectored him. Sometimes lovingly, sometimes not, caught up in the compulsion to raise a superman. He thrived and he flourished. He laughed and shed tears. He had close-calls and near-misses. He received love and gave back a hundred-fold.

Five years later, he has become a noisy and hyperactive gangle of elbows and knees, knuckles and shins. Sometimes, I actually get to hold him. Most times, he is too busy living life. At other times, so am I.

We are so alike, my son and I. We struggle mightily to get up in the mornings, we sulk for terribly long periods of time (and often at each other), we growl and spit over imagined slights, and we are the sweetest creatures alive when sated and content.

On this, his fifth birthday, I planned on posting a letter to him, congratulating him on the milestones he hurdled, and the maturity he'd acquired through the years. Instead, I took him out for pizza, a movie and the "ar-cave". Serious quality mother and son time. He had the time of his life and my heart busily photographed each unfolding moment for posterity - enough memories to riffle through with fondness during tough times.

And we've had our tough times, pitting like against like, snarling and circling like pit bulls in a pen. On the night of his fifth birthday, he loudly grouched about the lack of guests (we invited his grandparents, an aunt, an uncle and a cousin from next door), the lack of food (we had cake, ice cream, fried oriental noodles, roast chicken and lechon), and the lack of presents (he got a Barney sticker book). I tried to keep my temper in, mightily helped by warning glances from Atch until the birthday boy reached out with a grimy finger and dug a deep furrow into the cake. Chaos ensued, chiefly instigated by me. I ended the evening with an angry lecture on table etiquette and the importance of being grateful for small blessings. Then I sent him to the sink to wash his own mug and spoon.

On his birthday. On his birthday. On his birthday.


As with every parent who desires the best for her child but falls short on her own expectations, guilt hit hard and fast. But as he came to kiss me goodnight, he assured me he had a great birthday, "I had fun, Mom. This big (holding his hands a foot wide), and the bad parts were only this small (holding his hands apart an inch)."



How much can this wicked unfeeling weak inconsiderate mother take, to be so blessed with such a marvelously forgiving and loving son, who couldn't help but act his age, and then some. I wept.


Happy birthday, Woog. Hopefully someday, you will understand what I mean.