I Know You...I Love You!

A month and a third has passed, and I am looking at this stout and somehow unfamiliar creature who is flashing his toothless gums at me in a smile.

I say the creature's name and try to smile back. My smile feels fake, somehow. But the creature opens his mouth to reveal even more gums and a throaty chuckle. I am highly astonished and deeply moved.

Eli. Who are you? I've been nursing you, changing your poopy diapers and giving you baths. For you I undergo chronic sleep deprivation and unending back pain. I rock your bassinet and sing you to sleep. And all of it just seems so automatic. Like something that needs to be done because its there. And because frankly, I've no choice in the matter.

Thinking about that now...God, that sounds awful! You're my son for juan's sake. And it seems I've just discovered you. Might it have been the lack of sleep? Perhaps the move to the new apartment shifted my neurons a bit. Or was it Manong Woog's deviant episodes that shoved your existence to the far reaches of my awareness?

I merely have to look at you and you present me with one of your pure unadulterated smiles. All my doubts about your ability to see clearly dissipate then and there. You never smile at your yaya like that. Not even for Tatay. After all these weeks of caring for you like an automaton, I must've done something right.

And oh, thank God you're too young to know the difference between true mindful mothering and the distracted zombie-like upkeep that you've had to put up from me.

But I promise you, son of mine, you whose grinning expanse of gums is surpassed only by your obvious rapture at the sight of your lackadaisical mother...I promise you a more attentive and attuned parent, a limitlessly patient and tangibly loving parent. Despite the exhaustion. Despite the lack of sleep. I promise you all my good intentions, no matter how tremendously outlandish they may seem.

And perhaps, when you are old enough to read, and you happen upon this obscure entry from this equally obscure blog under your mother's name, then perhaps you just might find it within yourself to forgive her lapses, past and present.

Because she means well, she really does.

Septemer 2006

Survival of the Kick-est

When the little guy suckles, his eyes are screwed shut in fierce determination. He issues guttural little croaks and the occasional squeek. His fists are clenched, insistently pushing against my breast, or waving around as if to ward away prospective competitors.

You'd think he was born along with several other litter-mates. What do you think I am, little guy? A sow?

Funniest of all, his knees and feet push against my tummy, just like when he was in utero. And if my stomach wasn't in his immediate radius, well, the poor naked air would take the brunt of his ferocious drop-kicks. Aren't I lucky my nose and jaw aren't at torso level?

I remember when Woog was nursing. Such a serene fellow he was. He'd feast leisurely at my breast while staring up into my eyes, drinking deeply from the sight of me that I'd fall in love with him all over again at every feeding. Most times, he'd smile up at me from around my nipple - a most bewitching sight to behold that I wouldn't mind him dribbling rivulets of milk down his chin and my chest.

And Eli. My fierce little fighter. The way he suckles, you'd think he was trying to vacuum the whole breast into his tiny mouth. And I always get a laugh trying to catch hold of his little sausage arms and legs.

Are you punching and kicking your way into the rat race, my friend? I hope not. I pray your world stays as peaceful, as beautiful, and as uncomplicated for as long as I can possibly make it.

July 2006

Mr. Fix-it

My bare-chested Atch was wading through the coiling mess of innards that used to be my electric breast pump. His sweaty grin floated up from the haze of his soldering gun. “Its a fix-it day,” he remarked.

Indeed it was.

As an attestation of our ill-prepared journey into the life of second child-dom, we unearthed the basinette, the breast pump, the baby monitor, ad nauseum ... just days before Eli arrived, only to discover that four years of storage was enough to attract some electrical “ghosts in the machines”. As a consequence, Atch spent a large chunk of his 7-day paternity leave hunched over repairing one item or another, and in general being missed by the post-partum members of his family.

Woog alternated between neediness and puffed-up possessiveness. “I have a new baby brother,” I'd hear him proudly tell the neighbors, just before coming inside and crowding in with Eli during a refill at the Mommy pump.

Thankfully, Atch was there in between repairs to distract and regale, while I floated in and out of disorientation, trying to adjust to the new member of our family.

What a waste of Atchbund time, I thought rather ungratefully. I wanted to be cuddled and waited upon. I wanted an affirmation of his undying love in the face of my newly wrung-out body. I wanted someone to pick up the mess slowly accumulating around Eli and me in our once spic-and-span bedroom. I wanted Atch to stay still for one second so I could take his picture carrying the baby. Hell, I was as needy as Woog.

I dreaded the day he went back to work, to leave me forlorn and feeling abandoned, dreading the thought of being left with two children both under the age of five.

Still, I was thankful for all the mealtimes I was able to eat downstairs with the family, the newly repaired baby monitor beside me humming with Eli's steady breathing. Still, I was glad for the luminous glow of the lamp light during night-time feedings. Still, I sighed in relief as the freshly assembled breast pump gave me respite from full to bursting milk ducts.

Grudgingly acknowledged, Mr. Fix-it saves the day.

July 2006

Newsflash: New Specimen Unearthed!

9:00AM Atch and I trek all over downtown doing errands. Three hours of walking and my left bakya breaks in half.

11:00AM Head home to change shoes. Damned inconvenience. Spend rest of morning traipsing the mall.

4:30PM Internally probed by OB-Gyn yet again. Forty weeks today, no sign of contractions. Head back downtown. Maybe catch a movie.

5:00PM Was that a contraction? Nah. Probably just gas.

5:30PM Convinced Atch to buy me a pair of Happy Feet sandals (have pity on this poor pregnant woman who just broke a bakya). Am at boutique when...

5:45PM Whoa! These ARE contractions. Sales girl looks on worriedly as I make selection, hunched over. Breathing. People start to stare.

6:00PM Forget it, Atch, this is embarassing. Buy them for me next time. Let's eat, am hungry.

6:30PM Atch & I get some hot steaming batchoy to go. Contractions every 15 minutes. Breath. Breath.

7:30PM Eating batchoy at home with Atch and Woog. Hunched over soup. Contractions. Breath Breath. Whoosh. Whoosh. Woog asks: “Is the soup really hot, Mom?”

8:15PM Decide to go to hospital. In bathroom, drop soap at every contraction. Was that my water breaking? Nah. You're in the shower you paranoid fool.

8:45PM Arrive at hospital. Beg OB-Gyn for epidural. OB-Gyne laughs. Doesn't help she's my sister-in-law.

9:00PM Oh, the paaaaain....! (Go with the pain. Breathe. Don't fight it.) Who...who said that? Is somebody there? ........ ?! That you, Papa God?

9:17PM Delivery room. Pitifully whine to student nurse if I could hold his hand. Human touch and all that. He nods yes and I mash his hand to a pulp.

9:18PM Pushing. Pushing. Pushing. Puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuush!!!

9:23PM Baby squirts out. Four heaves. World record. Oh... hi! HI! My precious! My pokey bear! *Sniffle* Its me, its Mom! (pause) Some nose you've got on you!

Auntie Nat after pulling out her new nephew

9:40PM 7.8 pounds. APGAR score 9:9. Dark as twilight. Hear Atch outside snapping pictures. “Look at your nose!” Atch exclaims, laughing.

10:00PM On gurney on the way to room. Pain? What is pain? I want to see my baby again.

Pressure tank survivor and his amazing nose