Conversations With My Sons

Evening. Time for bed.

Mom: Let's go, 'Pet. Let's put on your 'jamies.

Eli (jumping in the middle of the big bed): No!

Mom: C'mon, 'Pet. I'll read you a story, then we'll drink milk. But first you have to put on your 'jamies.

Eli (still jumping while evading Mom's grasp): No!

Mom (nearly falls over the bed trying to catch Eli): Please, 'Pet.

Eli (piles pillows on top of one another and gallops away on his makeshift horse): No! No! No! Heee-yaaah!

Mom (exasperated): Elijah, don't you love Mommy anymore?

Eli: No!

Mom (losing her temper): You suplado, you!

Eli: 'Plado! You!

(proceeds to plant his fist on Mom's face)

********

Evening. Homework time.

Woog (busy opening his notebooks at the table): Teacher says I have to write 5 things about you, Mom.

Mom (busy typing on the PC behind him): Ok.

Woog (writing): Mom is....how do you spell “beautiful”, Mom?

Mom (preening): b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l.

Woog (still writing): Mom has curly hair.

Mom: Mmm-hmm.

Woog (still writing): Mom is fat.

Mom: *snort*

Woog (still writing): Mom loves me.

Mom: And you had better remember that!

Woog (still writing): Mom is....Mom is....Mom is kind.

Mom: Excuse me? I think you should tell the truth.

Woog: But I don't know what else to write.

Mom: Write “Mom is strict.”

Woog: But Mom....I want to write “Mom is kind”.

Mom: I'll whup you.

(pause)

Woog: How do you spell “strict”?

Scaregiver

My sons are young and strong and resilient. They'll have to be. The world is a harsh, scary and unpredictable place, and the sooner they find out, the better it will be for them. What won't kill them will only make them stronger.

Not.

Not by a long shot, dammit!

I feel so helpless about having failed to protect and shield my babies from real life monsters. Especially if those monsters hide behind the mask of a caregiver.

Woog finally snapped and rang my office from the apartment next door. Yaya Merly had locked him out. Hot and sweaty in the noonday sun, he knocked and hollered while she ignored his pleas. In desperation, he ran to Door 4 and dialled my number. Oh bless little 6-year-old boys who have just recently learned to use the telephone!

I was speechless at her temerity. How dare her! I called her straight-away and she whined about how noisy Woog was, and how disobedient. Then she hung up on me.

We sent her away without preamble, trembling with rage at her haughty assumption that she was indispensable.

Did she hurt you, Woog? We asked. He didn't let out a single tearful word until she had packed her bags and exited the door.

Sometimes. Because I'm so misbehaved.

That he would think that of himself, my wonderfully precocious, hyperactive and insatiably curious little boy. That she had stomped down on his delicate self-esteem, stooping to the level my children, the bitch! Were she in front of me I would have punched her square on her insufferable smirk.

But she was gone, and good riddance to bad rubbish.

I blamed myself for each time I pooh-pooh'd reports from next door of how Woog and Yaya Merly held regular shouting matches: oh, he's always that noisy, I'd say. And whenever poor Eli cried while she gave him a bath, I put it down to his being skittish about water. I didn't give a single thought to why my normally sweet children were standoffish around her.

Even my own mother was vocal about how the nanny would continuously be texting on her cellphone while the baby made his own unsupervised way about the living room. She makes my blood heavy, my intuitive mother often said.

And now it comes to this. Because I didn't listen. Because I didn't take time to sit down with my babies and feel their inner temperature.

Despite the horrible guilt I harbor, I take heart that my sons are tenacious. In time, they will forget, I try to reassure myself, strengthening my resolve to be more involved and more vigilant about these two priceless jewels that I need to protect with my life.

Once Upon A Hot Dark Night

I finally had the boys all to myself when Atch left for Cebu on a conference over the latter half of last weekend.

For the most part, I dreaded having to fend for myself as soon as our self-appointed family driver and resident cook boarded his plane Sunday morning. I did plead with him to stay and cancel his trip, but he hemmed and hawed and all but told me to shut up and quit acting like a child.

Sniff.

And so being the childish and utterly spoiled female that I am, I rang my father who jumped at the chance to spend a rare Sunday with his grandsons, with me tagging along like an extra leg. He agreed to pick us up. The boys were ecstatic. They were probably wary about me taking over the cooking again.

While waiting for our “substitute caregiver” to pick us up, I was able to get some work done on my writing while the boys tumbled about in the living room. Their play area spread outward to my minute office, and pretty soon I joined in the fun. Funny what a camera phone game (stuff-three-faces-into-the-viewfinder) can do to liven up a lazy Sunday morning.

My Tatay finally arrived and we piled into his car for the drive to our refuge-for-all-seasons, my parents' house at Bata, and we spent the rest of the sleepy afternoon doing nothing in particular.

Totally unproductive, Atch would have said. And he would have been well-vindicated: the power failed at Bata that night and we were duly chauffeured back to our tiny apartment where the electricity died exactly 10 minutes later. Payback time for missing Sunday Mass, Atch would have smirked.

So there we were in the family bed, the boys in their 'jamies, writhing and sweating miserably on the sheets. I sat at the foot of the bed, fanning them with the sturdiest cardboard folder I could find while the single candle cast grotesque shadows on the walls.

Woog, ever resourceful, had taken off his shirt and lay on his back spread-eagled, looking for all the world like a lab frog awaiting dissection. Eli just wailed. The heat was stifling, even with all the windows open, and he refused to be divested of his pajama top.

And so I fanned and fanned, sweating rivulets and swearing silently at the local power company that gifted us with cringe-worthy per kilowatt rates and consistently unreliable service.

Woog lay in silent resignation. Eli wailed. I fanned and fanned. We all sweated rivers. An hour and a half’s worth.

Outside, the neighbours came out and loudly cussed the power outage, perhaps in a bid to drown out Eli’s cries. He crawled towards me, my poor hot baby, and pressed his clean sweaty self upon my dusty sweaty self while I tried to manoeuvre my aching fan arm to get some flurries of air into everyone’s faces.

Atch was, post-conference, relaxing with bottles of beer in some snazzy Cebu bar with a live band and arctic air conditioning. He texted me a cherry “how are you”, and fanning the boys in a frenzy, I bitched back that he could’ve at least stayed. He maintained infuriating text silence after that.

Finally, just when I thought my arm would fall off and Eli would lose his voice, the lights came on. My younger son’s bawling was suddenly cut short like a guillotine falling on some 18^th century French noble’s neck. He chuckled through his snot and tears and clapped his hands like a toddler possessed. Woog merely sighed like a long-suffering martyr whose trials and tribulations were finally over, and wriggled back into his shirt.

The hell with the electric bill, I turned the air-conditioning on full blast.

_________________________

All of this I confided in a muffled voice into Atch’s armpit during a family hug when he arrived the following night.

“Poor Aif,” he said as he stroked my hair, not sounding very sympathetic at all.

Homeworkus Interuptus and Other Tales of Regurgitation

“But Mooooooo-oom, I want to do my homework,” my son whined.

Woog was clearly losing it.

After having dawdled over dinner, television and his bath, he showed up for our homework date at a time when some other person would have left the rendezvous point in frustration and vowed never to go out with him again.

But as his date was his mother, clearly she had no choice in the matter.

It started out innocuously enough with some drills writing Chinese number characters while he chanted “eee...er...san...sz..ooo...lio...” to the tune of his pencil scratching on the page. By the time we got to identifying the different rooms of a house in Filipino, he was picking chunks off his eraser with a fingernail, and I had to remind him to pay attention.

I finally called it a night when he rubbed off his umpteenth mistake from the “write the members of the family” crossword puzzle. The printed squares of his workbook were looking decidedly faint, and he was peering at me irritably, expecting me to provide him with the answers. The clock had struck the hour of nine. “Bedtime, Woog.”

“But Moooooo-ooom....!”

Upstairs, Eli was coughing up the contents of his milk bottle. His throat had a tickle, and he was scratching it vigorously with violent tremors of his glottis (hack! hack! haaaa-aaack!), in the process, upchucking everything else from deep down under. Twice now that evening.

I rushed upstairs, Woog still whining at my heels.

The sour stench hit us before we even took one step inside the room. One putrid puddle lay glistening at the foot of the electric fan, the other was messily sprawled too close to Eli's bed. Atch was cursing as he frantically scrubbed down two pillows with wet wipes. Meanwhile, Eli's rejected milky diet was slowly seeping down into the floorboards.

The owner of said lactose expulsion was sitting naked on our bed, newly divested of his soiled 'jamies. “Deeenk,” he said, “deeeenk....miiik.”

“Drink milk! Drink milk!” Atch glared in the direction of the baby, “I told you not to finish that second bottle! Now look what happened?!”

Eli burst into tears.

“Mooooooo-ooom! I want to do my homework!”

This was not exactly the best night in our lives. We were tired, cranky and vomitty. We were all in need of a rest. I sent Woog downstairs, took the wailing baby in my arms, gave him a drink of water and wiped the rest of the sour dampness from him.

Atch cleaned the floor with a scowl on his face. There was no help for it. The room was going to stink of gastric juices and curdled baby formula for the rest of the night.

“Deeeenk miiiik.” Eli ventured once more.

Downstairs, I told Woog in as calm a voice that I could muster that he needed to go to bed.

“Whyyyyyyyy?” (which came out sounding like waaaaaah-iiiiiii)

“Why?” I asked him back, taking deep breaths and buying myself some time.

Shamefaced, he acknowledged his tardiness and the lateness of the hour, but followed it up with, “so I won't do homework again. Ever.”

“Ok then, you might as well stop going to school tomorrow, too.”

“Whyyyyyyyy?” he started over in a grating wail, and I found myself in danger of not only losing my patience, but regressing to my son's level as well.

“I'm mad.” Woog gritted out, knuckling his eyes and trying to still his quivering mouth.

“Which is why you have to go to bed before both of us really lose our tempers. Now, please.”

He ran upstairs, pausing to give me a tearfully resentful glance before slamming his door behind him. Faintly, I heard the bolt turning in its lock.

Nicely handled. What a swell mommy you are.

Atch came down, looking all of his forty years. Poor Atch. Haggard from a two-hour drive out of town, just gulped down his dinner, only to come face to face with a toddler playing the title role from The Exorcist. And with a wife straight out the pages of Mommy Dearest.

Some days I wonder if we'll ever get this right.

Manog-hilot

When I was a little girl, I fell out of a neighbor's bugnay tree. The branch I was hanging from broke with a sharp crack and I landed flat on my back, gasping for air like a catfish on the chopping block.


The next day I was running a high fever and had the hoarse raspy cough of a veteran smoker. My parents brought me over to Tyo Gunding, a silver-haired man with a brown seamed face and a nearly toothless grin. Tyo Gunding enclosed my thin wrist with two knobby fingers and felt my pulse for a second or two, questing for a “kibit”. He laid me face down on his lap, and with his gnarled hands did something twisty to my back. I felt a mild uncomfortable snap, and then he let me up gently. The fever left me that very afternoon.


Through the years of various childhood mishaps, my siblings and I were Tyo Gunding's frequent customers. On some visits, I even came face to face with some kids from school who were there for the very same reasons I was. Tyo Gunding was obviously a manog-hilot of great reknown.

I never really thought deeply upon this phenomenon. The Tyo Gundings of my world were as accepted as rubbing Acete de alcamporado and binding the tummy of a colicky baby, or calling out “tabi-tabi” to unseen spirits when transversing an area of heavy vegetation.


It was a time when adults would append the requisite “puwera buyag” to every sentence someone would utter in praise of their younglings. And when these same younglings came down with fevers oddly coupled by cold clammy palms and soles, they would send for a “manog luy-a”, usually a female healer who would rub key areas of the child's body with a piece of ginger, blowing on it at intervals while uttering strange hispanic-sounding incantations. I vaguely remember a “manog luy-a” working on me once. As far as I know, this is done still.


I grew up and had kids of my own. When Woog was a rowdy toddler trotting faster than his equilibrium could keep up, falls were a frequent occurrence. Some of his more spectacular acrobatic performances were followed by a fever and dry hoarse coughing the next day. Without any second thoughts, we would bring him to Tyo Jimmy, an elderly man who owned an aquarium in which swam the ugliest fish I have ever seen.


Tyo Jimmy would briefly take Woog's wrist. It always intrigued me how the manog-hilots could tell something was wrong, some vein misaligned or pinned between a bone or cartilege, simply by taking the child's pulse.


Tyo Jimmy's next step involved either rotating Woog's arms from the shoulders, or stretching his legs backwards at the socket, depending on where the “kibit” was. He always ended each session by rubbing Vicks Vapor-rub front and back. “No baths until tomorrow,” he would say, “and no air-conditioning for at least an hour.”


We would thank him profusely and drop a twenty-peso bill in a small bowl in front of the hideous fish. He never touched the money himself. Nor did he ever specify his exact charge in “medical” fees. At any given time, the bowl would contain a motley collection of fifties, twenties, and coins of various denominations. I suspect if you offered him a loaf of good bread or a tray of eggs, he would gladly have accepted them, too.


And within the next few hours, like clockwork, Woog's fever always disappeared. The coughing, within the next day or so. When Eli would take sick from performing magnificent stunts of his own, we brought him to Tyo Jimmy, too.


They were almost always elderly men or women, these manog-hilots. Some say they were born with the gift of touch, others say they apprenticed for a long period of time under older healers before they could practice their craft. It seems they followed a code that disallowed them from charging a monetary fee for their services. It is said that if they did, they would lose their gift. Probably the reason for Tyo Jimmy's hands-off-on-money policy.


Needless to say, my sisters-in-law, both doctors, disapproved of our visits to these local chiropractors. “No scientific basis whatsoever”, they would say, or “of course your body aches when you have the flu, the manog-hilot massages it a little to make it feel better, is all.“


Yes, I suppose taking our febrile kids to the manog-hilot does take a stretch of faith. Why risk your children's bodies to someone with no formal medical schooling when there are hundreds of over-the-counter chemicals to pour into them, right?


But how do you argue with what may just be thousands of years of efficiency and effectiveness? Or with wide-spread word of mouth? And its not as if these manog-hilots dance around a bonfire in the dark of night, shaking an annointed palm branch over our kids and chanting all manner of satanic summons to raise the malignant spirits.


When my boys are grown and have kids of their own who are wont to slide down bannisters, tumble from headboards, or fall from trees, I hope they remember manog-hilots like Tyo Gunding and Tyo Jimmy. I certainly do.



Glossary of terms:

kibit – term used by the manog-hilot to describe a vein trapped between two bones, or between a bone and its cartilege after having been misaligned from its usual position due to sudden forceful movement.

manog-hilot – term used for a local chiropractor who heals through touch therapy.

Acete de alcamporado – camphor oil

tabi-tabi – literally “excuse me”. A phrase used to beg passage from unseen spirits who are believed to inhabit heavily wooded or grassy areas. It is said that harming these unseen entities by inadvertently stepping on one will bring unexplainable bodily harm and sickness.

puwera buyag – a superstitious phrase used to ward off “buyag” or “usog”. Buyag or usog is used to define a mysterious weakness or sickness accompanied by fever, excessive yawning or a tummy ache that come over a child when caused by a comment directed at that child by a person with “isog dungan”, or an overpowering personality.

manog-luy-a – a healer who negates the effects of “buyag” or “usog” by performing a ritual that includes rubbing a piece of ginger on parts of a child's body, blowing at the ginger and at the child's head, and chanting Spanish prayers.

Twists and Turns

I've been getting such wonderful surprises lately. For the past week, instead of having my heart and throat bruised each time I call home from work, it seems Woog is bent on proving he is Mommy's sweetest little boy after all.


Yes, Yaya says, disbelief apparent in her voice, he is upstairs ready to take his siesta. Yes, he has put away his clothes and taken a bath. Yes, he has finished his lunch. And five chocolate-coated cookies besides.


All this before the clock has even struck two.

Hello, Mom! Woog suddenly chimes into the receiver. I tell him I love him and I miss him, not wanting to start nagging and destroy this perfectly wonderful series of days.


I wuv you too, Mom! He exclaims, and launches into a description of the latest Battle B-daman model to hit the market, not without a hint of avarice in his high piping voice. I let his enthusiasm wash over me for a couple of moments more before asking him how class went and what Lao Shr has taught him today.


Maybe it's the new school, with its central rubber-floor indoor playground and air-conditioning, not to mention the Chinese half of the curriculum that may have inspired my older son to make this sudden a turn-around. Lao Shr is his Chinese teacher, an affable young man who hails straight from the People's Republic and is himself struggling to perfect his English.


Lau Shr has taught Woog how to say Wo Ay Ni, and Woog is pronouncing it to me now, very carefully trying to get the accent right. I throw the phrase back at him, insanely proud of how hard he is trying to please me.


When I wake up, I'll eat more cookies, okay, Mom?


Okay, Woog. I wuv you!


I wuv you too, Mom.

Before we ring off I ask to speak with Eli, and suddenly Woog is shouting in the background


Talk to Eli! Special delivery!


even before I finish the sentence.


Then the baby is on the line with his signature Mmmmm?


How are, 'pet? I ask him. Have you eaten?


Mmmmm.


Are you watching tv?


Mmmmm.


Where's my kich?


*smooch*


Where's my hug?


'Ug!


At this point he suddenly remembers he misses his mother, and demands Up!


But I can't carry you, 'pet, I'm at the office.


Up! He insists more vehemently.


I'll carry you when I get home later, ok?


And then Yaya's voice is there, telling me my toddler has just, all of a sudden, handed her the phone. Seeing as how I couldn't lift him up right that very moment (you useless Mommy, you), he has lost all interest in conversation, such as it is.


I sigh and ring off.


Oh well, I think to myself, its not like I can have everything all at once. But what I do have is beyond wonderful, and I am absurdly blessed.

The Day of the Giant Red Bee (a photoblog)

Woog had his first birthday party at age two. It took his mother nearly a year to prepare: drawing up a concept, filling out the guest list, planning the food, games and decorations, scouring wholesale shops for novelty items to hang from the pabitins and fill the piñatas with. It was a payday to payday struggle, with a then employment-challenged Atch dutifully chauffering me around on the weekends and patiently carting my purchases, but we made it. And Woog had a memorable birthday blast that was talked about in the months that followed.

By contrast, the joint birthday party we held for the boys (Woog 11 days into his sixth year, Eli 22 days short of his second) took me less than three weeks to arrange. Funny what slightly more money, slightly more children, and considerably less free time will do to your planning stage. Still, the kids had fun, and Eli was especially ecstatic. The cheapest clown I could find (“that's hilarious,” Atch guffawed, “the cheapest clown! Imagine someone callling you cheap, and you're a clown!”) was fortunately un-cheesy, the food overflowed, the games were loudly energetic (even the grown-ups got to play), and the giant red bee was a hit:

The invite

The tarp. Took nearly half a blasted day to assemble
their favorite characters and do the lay-out concept.

The cake

The cheapest clown. Meet Anderson and his balloons animals.
One of the gamest clowns ever, despite Woog clobbering his
brightly-colored loins with a rubber mallet. Ow.

Anderson in action

Eli and Mom

Fine dining manners

Piglets at the trough

The Bee! It's the Bee!

Where you been all my life?

Eli's first love is not his mother.

Say what, grampa?

The geriatric and the pediatric

Don't worry, Eli, I'll blow the candles, you go ahead and hug the Bee.

The boys and the Bee

Pabitin frenzy

Grown ups in a frenzy. Tore all the crepe to shreds, too. Tsk.

Mom, look what I got!

Bee, look what I got!

The Bee stings the piñata

It's a Battle B-Daman! Yehey!

Bee photo op

Eli, Bee, and the grandparents

Buzzing with the bee

It rained a bit which meant that less than half of the guest list turned out. Either that, or we unwisely scheduled the party for Father's Day. In any case, we had a ton of food left over and Atch grouched about the waste. When we got home, we gave plates of spaghetti, barbecue and sandwiches to the neighbors, and carted the rest over to Atch's hometown of Valladolid, 31 kilometers away away. We'd learned that very same day of the passing of Tatay Ponyong, his late aunt's husband, and knowing how hard-up that branch of the family was, the food certainly came in handy at the wake. Not a waste, Atch, never a waste. It was meant to be.

On the rainy drive back home, the kids slept, still fully dressed in their birthday outfits. Atch and I exchanged an ancient weary glance. We'd forgotten how tiring and back-achy hosting a children's party was, even more so now we were older and had less energy than the usual. “This is the second to the last party,” Atch declared, “the boys can have another one when Eli turns four or so, but that's it.”

Mmmm-hmmm, I think I might have yawned. That'd be about it. I felt a sense of accomplishment, like a dutiful tick mark made on a checklist of things-to-do. And while my excitement didn't reach the level of the last one, this party was made more meaningful by the happy smiles on the faces of my boys, and the relief it brought to those who needed it.

But thank Lordy it'll be a while until I have to conjure up the next party. It'll take just about that long for me to recover.

Woog, Eli and Child Labor

Nighttime. Woog meanders through meal. Evening chore is wiping post-dinner debris off table and sweeping kitchen floor. Woog dawdles. Attempts to prolong inevitable.


Eli is done with meal. Bored out of skull. Gets hold of Mom's old eyeglass case. Starts to pick at rubber lining. Pick. Pick. Pick. Million pieces of soft green snow rain down on floor. Busy hands. Happy baby.


At table, Woog shrieks. Mind's eye sees floor sweep-a-thon til midnight. And Pokemon starts in half-hour.


Woog (near to apoplexy): Eli! Stop! Stop!


Eli (grins at brother): Mmmmm.


Woog (approaching indigestion): Stop! Stop scattering everything!


Eli (basks in attention, picks harder): Mmmmm!


Woog (turns to Mom for help): Mom! Eli's messing the floor!Tell him to stop!


Mom is doing dishes. Tired of waiting for empty plate of slowpoke son. Shrugs. Waits for Woog to solve predicament by self.


Woog wolfs down meal. The sooner to stop brother's particle shower, the better. Speeds through wiping of table. Rushes next door with bowl of leftovers for auntie's dogs. Descends on confetti-happy toddler like avenging angel.


Woog (aflame in artery-popping ire): Eli! You think you're smart?!


Mom winces. Woog uses words with long history. Passed down from grandfather to mother. From mother to son. From son to baby brother. Mom resolves to abolish words from family lexicon.


Eli looks down at handiwork. Red-brown floor is abloom with sprays of soft green. Pretty. Eli chuckles. Beside him, Woog is Rumplestiltskin dancing with rage. Close to tearing hair off. Close to tearing little brother's hair off.


Eli marches to cleaning supplies closet. Takes out broom and dustpan. Commences to do Woog's job.


Woog (near to tears): Eli, stop! You're making it worse!


Woog is right. Felt pieces are tossed about in whirlwind of Eli's passage. Mom collapses in laughter. Nearly drops plate.


Mom (in conciliatory tone): It's okay, Woog. At least he's trying.


Woog harrumphs to living room. Bereft of job. Bereft of speech. Snaps on Cartoon Network and settles down with episode of Pokemon. Mom thinks certain people are secretly relieved to be let off chores.


Meanwhile, Eli commences wrecking havoc with broom and dustpan. Look of intense concentration on face.

Starting them early.
This is why we are a nation (in)famous for export manpower.

The Island

“Maybe you'll write about us in your blog,” the bespectacled man said. I turned around, bewildered. Beside me, Atch was sitting on a piece of driftwood in the sand, doing his drunken master thing and insisting that some of the rechargeable batteries still had power in them.

“She will.” Atch slurred empathically, before I even had a chance to open my mouth.

The man continued, “My wife, she's blog-crazy. She reads all blogs.”

I gave the bespectacled man an embarrassed grin. “Maybe I will,” I amended.

In my arms, Eli was whining. On the sand, Atch finally gave up trying to stuff the batteries into the camera.”They're all dead, Aif,” he mumbled, fumes of Tanduay 15-years carried by eddies of ocean air to my face. I wanted to tell him “I told you so”, but the bespectacled man was still lounging on the railing behind us, playing host.

It was the afternoon of our first day on the island resort, Atch's company's summer outing. His colleagues were scattered all over the sandbar: soaking, kayaking, snorkelling, drinking. Woog was showing off his new swimming skills and was half-floating under the stone bridge of whose railings the resort manager was now resting his prodigious bulk on.

This guy doesn't know me, I told myself, transferring Eli's 10-ton weight to my other arm, he's guessing I might have a blog, probably on the off-chance he'll get free publicity.

And isn't he the same guy who overcharged us on the kayak rental nearly ten years ago? I squinted, trying to remember, but my memory flitted away on the salty sea breeze.

I was on this very same island one summer almost a decade ago, pre-Atch. With an ex-boyfriend, also pre-Atch. There were brightly-coloured starfish by the hundreds, then. And the kayaks didn't have half patched-up holes, or missing paddles, or absent lifevests. And the tennis court didn't look like an overgrown Celtic ruin, and the sand around the “floating” cottages was free of squilchy grey mulch.

Still, I didn't want to offend our host. I was here as a guest of the guests, after all. I was here for Woog and Eli, the former having the time of his life, the latter having set foot on the seashore for the first time.

Where am I again?

Poor Eli. He wailed on the aqua-bike. He screamed aboard one of the kayaks. And now the cold waves and the whipping sea wind were giving him second thoughts. Give it a chance, pet, I urged him silently.


Woog, meanwhile, dug a hole in the sand and asked me to bury him. We gathered and discarded countless shells and other sea creature skeletons before it finally turned dark, and we headed back to the lodge where I equally cajoled, bullied and manhandled the boys to shower and change.

That evening, Atch sweated off the alcohol at the grill, fanning at the hot coals under the beef while a tropical storm raged outside, and lightning fandango-ed across the sky.

“Boot!” Eli exclaimed, pointing to the moored jetski. “Boot!” he squealed at the three anchored outrigger watercraft. He and Woog passed the time getting in the way of food preparation and popping mixed nuts into their non-stop mouths. At least Atch's officemates found my sons cute and adorable. Or maybe they were only being polite.

We woke the next morning to a mildly sunny day, and despite my desperate urging, the boys hardly bothered with breakfast before trooping to the sand, buckets and shovels in hand. Like a miniature sumo wrestler, Eli stomped down on every sandcastle Woog tried to build, and Woog wailed each time, pushing his brother away with his feet. Finally Atch pulled the baby aside and dug a depression on the sand for him to trample on.

Across the sandbar, the loans collector and the office manager were gingerly lifting sea urchins from the water with a paddle and laying them on a kayak. Woog ran off to see them at work, facinated by the spiny black balls undulating on the hot pink plastic. But they weren't spiny for long. The gatherers broke off the poisonous but strangely fragile points and hauled the creatures away in one of Woog's pails. “The new bucket meal,” the loans teller announced. Apparently, they tasted very well with rum, whiskey or beer. “Raw too,” the office manager added. One of the spines had pierced his palm and he went off to find a pair of tweezers.

The urchin with the urchins

Would they have harvested sea urchins if there were plenty of starfish around? I wondered. For that matter, would they have eaten starfish? Urk.

Lunch was uneventful, though I saw no sign of sea urchin flesh on the table. Later, everyone packed up to board one of the pumpboats that would take us back to the mainland. “Boot!” Eli gurgled sleepily. He and Woog seemed none the worse for wear after their island adventure.

But the boys slept all throughout the two-and-a-half-hour road trip back home, Woog cramping my left shoulder and the top of Eli's head lodged hard under my chin. This is the beginning of the end, I thought. And I bade a wistful farewell to summer days when I would go away to the beach to unwind, splash, soak up the sun and have fun. It's my babies' turn now. And I never felt more of a parent than I did at that very moment. A very exhausted, ancient and windswept parent, but a parent nonetheless.

Back home, Atch swore loudly when he found a dent at the rear of the car, something he had tiredly overlooked when he claimed it at the port where we had parked. And I swore just as loud when I put on a shirt that brushed against my fiery red back. In my zeal to protect the children from the sun, I had smothered them in sunscreen and forgot to put some on myself. Behold, here grimaces a sunburnt parent.

And Atch plans to take us to another island next summer. Oh, help.

*****

Much later, I remembered the bespectacled man, and in fairness to him, I did write this post. So there.