Maiden Flight

Manila trip - Day 1

Woog knows his dinosaurs. His particular favorites are brachiosaurs, diplodocuses, and brontosaurs - those huge lumbering long-necked lizards that lived millions of years before his own father ever thought of depositing the sperm cell that eventually formed half of him.

Woog emulates these favorite dinosaurs even as the plane taxies off into the runway. He and Yaya Rose crane their necks out the window as the whole world tilts at an uneven angle. If human necks could get any longer, theirs does the day of their first plane ride: June 4. Woog's 7th birthday. What better present can a boy and his nanny get?

Trying to believe his eyes

As the houses and trees depreciate into miniature structures down below and the clouds rush pass their faces, Woog trumpets his glee, the sing-song whoop spiraling up from his elongated throat to emerge shrilly out his mouth, only to reverberate in a pressurized cabin where a couple of hundred other people share limited air space. As one, his fellow passengers stretch their necks like a herd of grazing dinosaurs searching for the source of the sound.

The absurdity of imagining dinosaurs on a plane thousands of feet up in the air strikes Woog's mother as funny, and she takes a dozen shots of the first-time flyers who are straining against their seatbelts in excitement.

Yaya, are you going to be sick?

Eventually, one other starts to protest the papparazo invasion before attempting to escape his own restraints.

Fortunately, a stick of spearmint gum placates him, and his mother doesn't even scold when he swallows the whole wad after chewing. The window is beyond his line of sight, you see, and he is enjoying his maiden flight as only a two-year-old can.



Nine people land an hour after their scheduled time of arrival, having dipped and shimmied in the overcast sky, waiting for air traffic to clear before touching terra firma. The kids battle their midday hunger pangs at the airport by ganging up on each other until their irritable parents pull them away by their ears, or separate them with firm taps to their bottoms.

Finally, after the confusion of looking for and finding the car and driver sent by a cousin, six hungry adults and three hungry kids pile into a pick-up that seats four people (Atch spends the drizzling journey out in the truck bed, bedecked in a raincoat and umbrella). After the typical speed -crawl that one can only find on Manila streets, everyone finally settles down to a lovely meal that is summarily devoured without much fanfare, expense notwithstanding.

Chomping our way through The Aristocrat, Roxas Boulevard

Happy Birthday, Woogie! Welcome to Manila!

Speeding Through Time, Heels Digging In

It is June. Woog's 7th birthday. Where did my baby go? Where did the summer go? The rain is pelting down on the roof, and the sun is making its requisite weak effort. Mano a mano, neither the one giving in.

We wake up early today, the darkness permeating our tiny room. Even Woog, for whom sleep is infinitely preferable to food. The boys are excited to be getting on a plane for the first time. We are heading for Manila today, with cheap promo tickets bought online the month before. Our birthday presents for Woog, who is 7 toady, and Eli, who will turn 3 in July. And for Yaya Rose, who turned 19 last month.

It is June. In a week, my gapped-tooth older boy will be in first grade. The years are speeding by (oh be still, my racing heart), and I haven't the foggiest idea of how to slow them down.

I console myself by thinking of the month that has passed, and the many highlights that seem like mere flashes in my consciousness. Events that have made me, in equal parts, laugh and fume:

My Tatay, after gurgling half a case of beer with his brother, Ninoy Toto and my Atch, then attempting to turn off the overhead lights with the tv remote control.

Samantha, the Indian neighbor kid, slamming in and out of our apartment with impunity , and raiding the refrigerator while complaining of hunger. The things people need to teach their kids. I ought to have a few words with her mother.

Yaya Rose, coming home tearfully after a vacation. Her father refuses to let us send her to school. He prefers to pay for her tuition himself in their small pastoral community school in the hinterlands. When he can't even manage to put enough food on his family's table. When he is possessed of such small-minded maliciousness that makes us want to chew him up and spit him out.

The kids, building a castle out of Debbie-Does-Dallas and other Playboy Playmate video tapes that my uncle has sent over from the States. My uncle emails my father: you can watch these now you're a retiree. Tatay doesn't mention that VHS machines have become obsolete.

It is June. Woog is 7. That magic age, the beginning of the end of his wonder years. I look forward to the future with mixed emotions.....

Woog's Tooth

A little boy with grin so wide
Ran down the stairs all full of pride
“I pulled it out, so there,” said he
“It did not hurt a bit, you see.”

He showed me chompers shining white
And bottom center was the sight:
A gap so dark I barely saw
the yawning chasm of his maw.

“Another one is coming loose,”
He tiptoed up and showed me thus
While pinched between his fingers two
The milky peg, that calcium'ed clue.

For weeks he'd worried with his tongue
The wobbling stalk, a stubborn one
I'd oft pull grimy hands from tooth
As absently, he'd pull the root.

So now that clinging tooth is gone
And in its place, a sunken gum.
A teasing glimpse of winking bright:
A rising tooth behind the site.

He prances up and down, this boy
My gapped-tooth son, my pride and joy
He hides the tooth ever carefully
Away from the greedy tooth fairy.

Play It Again For The Second Time Around Once More, A Rerun

Because we sent him to school at age 3, and because the Philippine school system is run by a bunch of bureaucratic idiots who change their policies depending on where the money falls (6 1/2 to 7 years is the new parameter for first grade) , Woog graduated from kindergarten for the second time in his life.

A record! Atch declared, he's the first ever person on both sides of the family to do so. Atch would know. He spent 8 years in college.

Still, there was much rejoicing, albeit a shortage of excitement, as Woog's big day loomed. We a.) rented the requisite toga, b.) listened to him as he practiced the alma mater songs, and c.) attempted to drag him away from his Nintendo gameboy to buy the regulation navy long pants. Only the first two were successful, but then again, graduation wasn't a new thing to get all worked up about, so two out of three isn't so bad.

Teacher Piorque and Shi Lau Shr

With the oppressive heat of summer pressing down on us and making us cringe into the pavement, nearly 300 nursery and kindergarten kids, accompanied by parents, siblings, cousins, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nannies, and their whole barangays, it seemed, filed in a surprisingly orderly manner into the gym, and sat obediently on plastic chairs arranged for the occasion.

We waited, we sweated, and we clapped through the opening remarks, awardings, speeches, and presentations, guarding our toes as eager parents and hangers-on rushed forward with their cameras and handycams to capture each gloriously shining moment of their beloved offspring.

Woog, our 6-year-old veteran, frolicked in the first few rows with his graduating class, pulling off several caps and running away with them, jumping up and down on his chair, and playing abbreviated games of tag before the assistant teachers shushed him and pulled him back to his seat. Him and 300 other kids.

Chaos, thy name is Woogie

Finally, his name was up, and our first-born rushed forth upon the stage with his signature ear-to-ear grin.

Watch out first grade, here I come!

Ignoring the heat, we took the requisite hundred pictures, and we all headed home where we fell to our lunch like hungry wolves.


He never even asked for a graduation present.

Atonement

Atonement isn't all that difficult it seems, but accomplishing it is an excruciating exercise. You're aware of your attempt to make amends, and the brutal truth is, it doesn't make you feel any better about yourself.

I make another foray into the job market, chauffered by my sister Dada and her fiance. On the way back from what seems like a morning full of hope, I stop by a novelty store and get Woog a Transformers whiteboard. It is my attempt at atonement, and a sorry excuse at trying to forgive myself.

Dada laughs at me and my all too apparent intent to compensate for my shortcomings, but she stands by me anyway, nodding with approval as I make my purchase. In this, I am very much my mother's daughter. Plagued by guilt and maternal insecurity, but too busy to do much about it. Instead I shower my offspring with too many material possessions, whether they need it or not.

That Woog goes into paroxysms of delight when I give the present to him doesn't help my conscience any one bit. And so I hang up his whiteboard and he spends endless moments loudly planning what to write on it, practically oblivious to his mother standing by his side.

The next morning I take a peek at it after he leaves for school, and a fresh wave of guild assails me. Despite everything I have done, my son loves me. Would that he would do so forever...

Woog's notes to self

No Salvation

...and sometimes I drown in words, my eyes blank with acceptance as I sink into their depths. They fill my nose and my mouth and my mind until I cannot breathe and I cannot think. But I do not struggle as I slowly submerge. For this is my fate, and there is no salvation...

February

Early morning. I am getting some work done at the computer. Eli is behind me, gliding on his scooter. Woog is at the toaster, performing his morning chore of crisping the breakfast bread. Suddenly, just when I am attempting to extricate myself from an awkward turn of phrase, Eli screams loud, long, and piercingly. I turn around, ready to tell him off for crying at the drop of a hat again, but I see something that makes my blood run cold.

Woog, for some reason only known to him, has placed the butter knife inside the oven toaster and touches its red hot tip to his brother's arm. Eli's face is purple, and he is losing his breath with his screams. The rage that comes over me is inexplicable. I grab hold of the butter knife and whap Woog on the bicep, broadside. That the knife is still hot escapes my notice as I glare at him from a red film of fury. It is only when he squeals and claps a hand to his arm do I realize what I have done.

I grab my crying boys and lead them to the nearest faucet, spraying water every which way. Atch comes downstairs, demanding the cause of the racket. When he sees the raised blistering skin of his wailing sons, none of my words can pierce through his anger. He looms over me, a stranger with hard fists.

He takes hold of his first-born's arm with tears of wrath in his eyes, “this,” he accuses me “is how he will remember you by - the monster who burned him.”

I am a mother. I am a monster. The four of us stare at each other, crying. Above us, the clock ticks ever onward to my doom.

February

The days are slow in passing, and so is the depression. The word “monster” has burned its way into my mind, like a hot brand of accusation. Already, it has made its rounds within the family, and although no one speaks it out loud

“monster...”

I see the word in their eyes

“monster...”

shining like beacons to mock my dark.

“monster...”

Only my hurt sons continue to cling to me, allowing me to smooth my apologies into their burnt skin like I do their ointment.

“monster!”

February

I am a devourer of books. I stow away in frigates and sail to far-off places in my bid to escape the world I am in. I flee my unpardonable sins. I take flight from the disillusionment in my husband's eyes. I turn tail from the unbearable people I work with each day. I am constantly on the lam from this encompassing depression. But more importantly, it is because I seek desperately to evade the glistening pink and white scar that gazes piteously up at me from Woog's arm.

William Goldman, Gail Carson Levine, Audrey Niffeneger, Annette Curtis Klause. I jump into bed with them, one after the other. Diana Gabaldon, Neil Gaiman, Cornelia Funke, Christopher Paolini, Stephenie Meyer. If they offer trilogies or novels in a series, I pursue them ever more relentlessly. In the space of two months, I have buried myself alive in 15 books.

I look up and blink around me in surprise. I find that I am in need of new glasses.

Valentine's Day

I open my eyes. Atch bends over me with a kiss and a card in his hand. The card thanks me for seven fruitful years together. Happy Valentine's Day, Aifee.

Over lunch, I hie over to his office with a gift of my own. “Here you go, fruitful,” I tell him, setting a colorful fruit compote down on his desk, “Happy Valentine's Day.”

I am constantly stuffing his lunch bag with fruits and vegetables, and with good reason. He has finally quit smoking in December, and I am insanely proud of him. Food has become a compensation for the loss of his poison sticks, and he gorges himself at every opportunity. Between the both of us, after the holidays, we have gained a good three hundred tons.

Happy Valentine's Day. He sends me off with an ardent one-sided embrace. It is the only way we can hug these days. Our bulging bellies are in the way.

February

M/V Doulos sails into our part of the backwater. A real ship. Filled with books and books and more books. The last time she was here, Eli was a toothless infant with no neck. I tell the boys about her wondrous innards, and pretty soon they are badgering their Tatay to bring them on board.

“I want to go to Doulos,” Woog nags.

“Chip, ride chip!” Eli chortles.

Resigned, Atch takes his family to the port where we feast our eyes on this seafaring missionary vessel just two years Titanic's junior.

On board, the whole city it seems, is neck and elbow amongst shelves upon shelves of books. We sweat freely while the boys dump their choice of reading material into my arms.

I am surreptitiously returning a Spanish-version Scooby-Doo board book back on a shelf when Atch hands me five cd's, his idea of digestible literature. “We're going to get ice cream, Aif,” he says before taking his sweaty self and both his sweaty sons out to the commissary, leaving me to pay for our purchases.

On the way home, it dawns on me that all I have gotten for myself is a mid-sized thesaurus and a book of household cleaning tips. No matter. I have given my boys the gift of words, and it will see them through for years to come.

Not Much Difference Really

Panic. Panic. Panic.

Woog is moaning underneath the blankets. Clutching them up to his chin. Curled into himself like a shrimp. Shivering, burning, shivering.

Mom. Sniffle. Mom, my head is dizzy. My feet are cold. Mom. Mom.

Thirty-five years does not prepare you for the sight and sound of your son's first full-blown fever-chill. Not when the Biogesic fails to work. Or the cool sponge bath. Or the glasses of water. Or the two layers of blankets, one of which is thicker than his tongue.

Panic. Panic. Panic. Should I call an ambulance?

Eli is looking at his mother in wonder. She is fluttering about like a headless chicken. Totally useless female. He clambers up on the bed and tries to warm his brother by leaping upon the bundled-up febrile form. Maybe all Woog needs is a good romp to start him sweating again.

Ooomphff. Mom. Eli is bothering me. Go away, Eli.

Leave Manong Woog alone! He's sick!

'Tick, Eli says. 'Tick! 'Doog 'tick!

Mom, my bones are owwie. Mom.

I could give him a massage. Accupressure-something. Where did I read that?

I rummage through the medicine box, hunting for the ever-reliable cure-all. My bottle of Polar Bear. That menthol-eucalyptus essential embrocation that has seen us through headaches and toothaches, mosquito bites and back pain, clogged noses and sore throats. It will help Woog's owwie bones, at the very least.

But it is missing. I upend the medicine box on the bed. Gone. Who had it last? I rack my useless brains.

Oh! Woog did. For his asthma. I run to the adjoining room and start pawing through Woog's baskets.

Panic. Panic. Panic. Oh, my poor fevered and shivering son.

Woog! Where did you put the Polar Bear, I call, still ransacking through his well-ordered belongings. Woog! I yell louder, fear making my voice hoarse. Where is the Polar Bear?

Footsteps thundering on the floorboards behind me. Eli.

He lifts up his worried eyes and offers me:

Bear, he says, bear.

He is handing me Blue Bear. His comfort plushie of choice. Bear, he says again, gifting me with a frown of anxiety and his most precious possession.

I am nonplussed. I can hear Woog in the other room. Laughing, shivering, laughing.

Oh, 'Pet.

I gather Eli and Blue Bear in my arms, the object of my quest forgotten. Woog is still laughing hysterically in between bouts of shudders. I start to laugh, too.

Bear, Eli declares adamantly. He hands the toy to his brother, who is too bundled-up to reach out, and too shaken up with mirth to take it.

Eli eyes the laughing lunatics. Perhaps this is an inside joke, he thinks. If it is, he doesn't get it. But he starts to laugh anyway. If you don't get 'em, join 'em. The one who laughs last, and all that...

Our laughter subsides to snickers more than half an hour later. My panic subsides with it.

Woog is fever-free the next morning, and decides to do a whole day TV-thon. All is well with the world. Eli and Blue Bear with it.

Not much difference really

"Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself..." - Khalil Gibran

...and so I called him after lunch on a Friday, eaten by regret that I was too harsh with him for not writing down his homework, leading to my punishing him by withholding a story at bedtime, and because, still vindictive, I lashed out at him for lingering too long at the breakfast table the next morning.

So I called him and I told him I was sorry.


And he said: "That's alright, Mom. You're my only Mommy, and you're beautiful, and I love you!"

Oh be still my guilty beating heart! To be over-loved and outclassed by my achingly sweet, wonderfully forgiving little boy.

I may never forgive myself.

___________________________________________

"...they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams..."

(S)mothering Much?

Woooooog....!

Oh, there you are. I was wondering what you were up to...

What's that you're doing?

Heyyyyy, cool. Those look good. You're actually working with your hands for once, good boy! It's a whole lot better than working with your mouth, no? Can I take a picture of that? Great job! You should do more stuff like this.

Isn't this better than just talking too much? Sometimes, when you talk too much and too fast I can hardly understand you. Your sentences are full of “and” and “but” and “so” and “then”. And everything you say runs together like “waway” soup. Sometimes Mommy wonders if you even breathe when you talk.

Which reminds me, what are you doing up so early on a Saturday? There's no school on Saturdays.

What's that? You're excited because school's out? Well, I guess I understand that, but why can't you wake up earlier on schooldays? Why does Mom have to pull you out of bed moaning and groaning and kicking out at her?

I thought you loved school. It's not like they torture you out there. Do they? No? Good. They'd better not. You tell Mom if they do, okay? I'll whup their butts so hard, they'll go flying to the moon.

Why are you laughing?

Yes, Woogie, I wuv you too.

Anyway, since you're up early, you might as well come down for breakfast. We have pancakes, and they're still hot. Your favorite!

What do you mean “later”? You can finish cutting that up after breakfast. That won't go anywhere, you can come back for them. Let me take just a couple more shots. There.

You know what, Woog? Mommy's worried about you. You're so thin and you don't seem to be getting any taller. Your cousin Ia's only three and she's nearly as tall as you are. Heavier, too. You need to eat a lot so you'll grow big and strong, instead of always saying “no thank you”, whenever you're given something to eat.

You're lucky you have food. Remember those pictures of the starving children I showed you? Do you want to start looking like them? You should be thankful you have lots of good food to eat. Other kids have nothing to eat at all. Show Papa God you're grateful by eating everything on your plate, okay?

Okay?

Okay.

Don't forget to make your bed before you come down. Fold your blanket properly. Make sure the bedcovers are neat.

Mom has to hurry or she'll be late for work. By the time I get back I expect you to have eaten lunch and taken a bath so we can take our siesta together, alright? Share your toys with Eli and don't make him cry. Remember, you're the big brother. You have to show a good example. Don't give Yaya a hard time.

What's that?

Oh, Woog (*sniffle*), of course I want to stay with you forever, but you know I can't. Mommy has to go to work. But I'll be back soon and we'll have our siesta together, okay? How's that?

Yes, Woogie, I wuv you too!

*hug*

Now, let's go down and have breakfast.

Shhhh....Do Not Disturb. Homework is in Session

I have been doing homework for the past four years. Imagine that. A middle-aged working mother, almost a decade removed from any form of regimentalized education, except whatever she gets by way of her son.

Yep. Woog and I have been doing homework for the last four years he's been in school. I can't literally say that it's been an educating experience for me, being as all I've learned in kindergarten, I'm learning all over again. Literally. Letter by letter. Word by word. Color by color. Numer by number.


Sometimes I get so hung up about it, I recite it in my sleep. That's what going back to doing homework at the nursery and kindergarten level does to you.

I am gratified, however, by how much of an eye-opener it has been. Guiding my son in doing his nightly homework has woken me up to several very relevant facts about life, such as:

1.) You cannot expect a pre-schooler to understand everything you are explaining to him in a dumbed-down adult sort of way. You have to spell it out, show-and-tell it, present a hundred and one examples, draw it, dance, and perform in mini theater presentations, for him to get what you are talking about.

2.) A pre-schooler has the attention span of a gnat.

3.) You may think, when you get started, that you are the most patient person in the world. You are dead wrong.

4.) As an adult adept at finding reasons to avoid attending prayer/community gatherings, parties, PTA meetings, or a neighbor's potluck fundraiser, you deem yourself a veritable expert at forming the most creative and believable excuses. You'll lose hands-down to a four-year-old.

5.) Have snacks on hand. A pre-schooler claiming to be too full to finish his squash soup at dinner will get voraciously hungry during homework time 10 minutes later.

6.) A pre-schooler has the attention span of a gnat. Divided by two.

7.) Little boys are always eager to learn, as long as it involves Pokemon, Battle B-daman and the Power Rangers.

8.) During subject review, expect memory loss 90% of the time.

9.) A tantrum thrown on study night in the middle of exam week will give you sleepless nights about your ability to parent effectively.

10.) They forgive you every time. Even if you are the wicked witch of the west every weeknight at homework hour.

Be all that as it may, I feel Woog and I have found a steady, comfortable rhythm each night when we open our books after dinner. I look at homework as a salvation of sorts, a time for us to bond - argue, hug, talk, shout, kiss and make up, and ultimately learn – in a routine that has become a part of our mother-and-son life for the last four years.

Incidentally, I've discovered something else in the last couple of nights. Something I should have implemented long ago, dumb backward mother that I am. This week is exam week and instead of making mock exam reviewers for him to answer on the back of old office scratchpaper, I decided to do it on MS Word.

It basically involved click-and-drag test questions where he positioned the correct picture under it's corresponding column, underlining the correct answer, and drawing lines to connect pairs. I made such judicious use of clip-art and colorful drawing tools that he was reluctant to stop even after our review was over. It's been such a success for the last two nights, I think I just might have a winning formula here.

Instead of having a son who goes and does his homework because its a necessary evil, he might end up an enthusiastic little boy looking forward to homework hour each night. Which makes me mighty excited and more than a little breathless at the possibilities.

You do learn something new everyday.

In Tribute to Philip Pullman's Lantern Slides *

Woog, arguing hotly over the phone about why he isn't allowed to watch tv while eating his lunch. It is 2 PM and he has been home from school for over two hours. This is his mother's second check-up call and lunch does not seem to be on the radar of his consciousness. He is complaining about Yaya not giving in to his request for a piece of toasted bread smeared heavily in butter. For lunch. His mother tries not to lose her temper, instead suggests he wait...just wait...for his father to call. She hangs up the phone gently in the middle of his whining protests, and puts her head between her hands. In front of her, some puzzled clients spare her glances of pity and consternation.

Yaya Rose, returning from retirement, much to everyone's surprise. She has just turned 18. A year before, she quit her post as Woog and Eli's nanny, bowing to the dictates of her father. But poverty and her father's need for liquor found her seeking employment once more, and for a time she was nanny to Woog's cousin next door. For pretty much the same reasons, her father's whims sent her packing for home again. Now, she is pleading to be taken back, and she cannot meet anyone's eyes. How many children like her are forced, by poverty and feudalistic-minded parents, to come down from the hinterlands and seek work in the cities?

Dondi, reclining in bed. She is dead tired and her limbs are stiff. She asks for a backrub and her husband willingly complies. He gets behind her, and for a time, all is silent as he kneads at tight muscles. But he has other motives in mind, and he begins to grope and pinch where no groping and pinching are needed. Dondi is frustrated beyond all reason. To add to her sorrow, Eli demands her attention by jumping up on her aching thighs and doing an unsteady bruising cha-cha.

Eli, sitting on his father's lap. The overhead light glares at an ugly purple knot on his forehead. He has been pushing a footstool across the floor again, running to evade his Yaya's grasp. In his haste to escape, he has collided with the hardwood arm of the sectional sofa, and raised a bump the size of Mount Kanlaon. There is a scratch underneath his right eye where he has scrubbed furiously away at his tears. His mother tries to figure out why he ignores his toys, and prefers instead to forcefully upend chairs and shove them around by their upraised legs.

Dondi, late at night. She is slack-jawed in front of the computer and wondering how some people manage to post updates on more than one blog Every. Single. Day. This after clocking in more than 10 hours at their day job, or attending to a houseful of their tantruming snot-faced children. Perhaps they spend the whole day walking around in Compose Mode? She wonders if she will ever have an uninterrupted slice of time without the baby slamming his palms on the keyboard while clamoring to be carried (“Up! Up!”), or the older son needing help with his homework. She knows she can ill-afford to lose out on more sleep, lest her zombiefied self cause the menfolk to complain about being late for next day's school and work. She sits at the computer and stares, clueless. On the wall above her, the clock strikes midnight.


* Philip Pullman, ending each of His Dark Materials trilogy with vignettes of stories lurking behind stories: lantern slides. Dondi looks forward to reading his Lyra's Oxford and is eagerly awaiting the release of The Book of Dust. She speculates on whether Lyra and Will ever see each other again, and fervently hopes Pullman doesn't sue her for borrowing heavily from his literary style.

The Evolution of A Boy

He was quiet when he woke up this morning, barely saying two words to anyone. He was pensive at the breakfast table, as well, seemingly deep in thought.


Maybe having a birthday does that to you. You feel like something should be happening at such a momentous occasion. Maybe the sound of your bones growing, or the skin of your face taking a different shape, or maybe even the sudden blossoming of wondrous insights inside your skull at the stroke of your birth hour.


But he had just turned 6, after all. And the changes he might have been expecting were still a long way off into the future. Far far away. In forty or so years, his growing paunch will tell him. And so will his aching back, his cynical thoughts, and thousands of strands of no-hair.


But for now, he is just a little boy who has just turned 6. And 6 is the exact same age to ask his mother at the breakfast table, "when are you going to evolve into an old woman, Mom?"


In the olden days, if I asked such a question, my father would have delivered a brisk clip to the side of my head and commanded me to stop spouting such nonsense. But I recognized the little girl that I used to be in his odd query. Perhaps he was wondering how long it took to become an adult. And I fancied his maturing mind was trying to grasp the concept of age.


Suddenly, he said, "Pokemon can evolve."


I was flummoxed. Is the generation gap too wide a chasm for me to cross? It seems I have lost my son in translation.


I was quiet for a bit more while I tried to analyze his question from every angle. But Woog's mouth won battle of supremacy against silence and emerged victorious. Suddenly, words burst out of his mouth at a mile per minute, shattering the morning calm with the enumeration of various Pokemon monsters he has observed to have, at one time or another, evolved on national television.


I laughed with him, relieved that he'd found himself again. Stay yourself a while longer, I said to him in my head, you have years and years and years and years.


After breakfast, we granted his birthday wish to spend the day at my parents' house. Later, when we picked him up, we learned he had helped his aunts set up an impromptu garage sale in the front yard and earned himself some money for convincing an old lady to buy a beat-up toy car.


The lady had asked him what on earth he was planning to do with ten pesos, and Woog, who has never had an allowance in his life, told her he was going to buy bubblegum. "Pleeeeeeease," he begged. She relented and haggled him down to five.


And so he has five pesos for birthday money. I can almost see the wheels turning in his head. Our spawn might turn out to be the world's greatest salesman. Fancy that kind of evolution. I just hope he doesn't sell us out of house and home.

Happy birthday, Woogie!

Slices of Sunday II

Woog is fidgeting before me with a hopeful expression on his face, first on one leg, then on the other. It is mid-afternoon and we are leaving in a while to attend a children's party. Eli is prepped and ready, squealing with excitement at this rare chance to explore the world.

Woog is not. Woog wants to stay here at my parents' house and play with his cousin, Kylot. I look at Atch helplessly. He shrugs and pockets the car keys. It is my call, apparently.

I sigh despondently. Spending family time together with my little foursome only three-fourths complete does not sit well with me. It evokes feelings of panic and foreboding and a deeply-rooted loneliness.

But my first-born is growing up and outwards, and pretty soon I am going to have to let him go and make his own way. If he wants to do a sleep-over, there are worse things than allowing him to stay at my parents' house.

I hug him and kiss him and remind him to behave, knowing deep in my bones he is going to do the opposite.

Later, back at home, I refrain from calling him half-a-dozen times like I did the first night he slept away from me. I only called once, and he promised that he had eaten and brushed his teeth and scrubbed behind his knees. And also that he loved me, and bye-bye, Mom, Manong Kylot and I are playing at the computer.

The family bed seems empty with only the three of us in it, and the night-sounds ring sadly hollow. Even when Eli cries and thrashes in his sleep, dreaming of fragments from his busy day.

In the morning I'll feel better, I try to assure myself. I wait for the daylight, but it is a long long time in coming.

Woog and Teacher Ina's Boobies

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. After all, he was at the right age to start his education. One never knew, it might just help double his appetite, not to mention get rid of his asthma.

So we enrolled him in swim class.

Just so he wouldn't be all by his lonesome amid other unfamiliar children, we convinced his older cousin, Kylot to take the class too. Kylot is 9, a tall lanky and quiet kid who has no fear of the water whatsoever. Unlike Woog.

And so it began. The hour and a half morning class started out at 8AM. The noise level was impressive as almost a dozen five to nine-year-olds squealed, splashed, and generally created watery chaos in this corner of the quiet nature resort. The 5 twenty-something swim instructors, probably college kids hoping to earn some moolah over the summer, were hard pressed trying to keep them all under control.

“Woogie, come into the water,” they cajoled. And Woogie wouldn't until they assured him he could stay in the shallows. It soon became pretty obvious that he wouldn't let anyone else see to his hands-on instruction except Teacher Ina, a huge dark hulking mountain of a girl wth an earth-mother sort of allure.

She got him to put his head under the water to blow bubbles, play “sharky-shark”, and flutter kick his way from one shallow end of the pool to the other while holding on to a styrofoam “noodle”. All this while patiently listening to his endless jabber about the latest Pokemon monster and Battle B-daman. Finally, assured that Woog had found the perfect mentor, we left the kids with my father (a retiree who volunteered for the chauffer and nanny job) and went back to work.

Tatay provided a day-to-day progress report each time we picked Woog up in the evenings. He wouldn't go into the water unless prodded by Teacher Ina. He would go into the water, but hold on tight to Teacher Ina. He wouldn't use the noodle to cross the pool unless he had Teacher Ina supporting his middle. He talked and talked and talked, making Teacher Ina resort to allowing him to talk only if he performed his lessons as directed. He talked so much, at one point Teacher Ina had to cup her hand over his mouth. At least he ate two breakfasts each morning.

“Woog,” we teased, “you really need to make an effort at swim class or we'll tell Teacher Ina you have a crush on her.” And Woog would protest long and loudly at this mock threat.

Two days before the 10-day program was to end, Woog made his move. As narrated by my father, Woog made his way up to the girls' shower room after that morning's lesson. Sneaking under the wooden batwing doors, he poked his head into the sanctum sanctuorum, and beheld....

“Well, did you see Teacher Ina's boobies?” Kylot was reported to have said. “No,” Woogie complained, “she was wearing a bra.”

Tatay related this with a mix of amusement and puzzlement. Being relatively new to the world of nothing-to-do and no-place-to-go, finally immersing himself in the lives of kids, albeit two generations removed, was a source of shock and wonderment to his system.

Atch and I exchanged worried glances. Five. Woog is five. How early is that to go off into explorations of his own? Even assuming Kylot put him up to it, and Kylot wouldn't say “boo” to a fly.

How can it be curiosity (“yes, it is”, my mother asserts) when we've had baths together since he was a baby, and he knows what breasts and a vagina look like? Woog has seen my mucus plugs, for crying out loud. But all the times in the recent past when he'd tweaked my own boobies (“your nipples are so soft and fluffy, Mom”) and which I'd dismissed and convenient forgotten made me cringe now.

“Woog, why did you want to see Teacher Ina's boobies?” We ask him. “But I didn't,” he protests, “she was wearing a bra.”

Atch and I are at a loss about this sudden display of precociousness. Given both our histories, it wouldn't be surprising that our spawn would follow suit. But at age five?

Incorruptible forever?

Swim class ended uneventfully and Woog conquered his fear of water. Teacher Ina's boobies thankfully receded into the background, and our son settled into his daily summer routine of Teen Titans, Power Rangers, Power Puff Girls and Ben 10, miniclip.com pc games, and only one breakfast.

But Atch and I are poised at an uneasy precipice before the sudden plunge into real life. The life of our boy. It seems we are going to have to scramble to keep up after all.