People Like You, Madam...!

One morning, I led Woog into the compound of his school. As we walked past the preschool's administrative division, he broke into a smile and paused as if to chat. But he was running late and I urged him onward with a goodbye kiss (“Have a great day, Woog! 'Wuv-wuv! God bless!”)

Woog's first day of preschool at age 3

A lady in one of the desks asked: “He's in kindergarten now, isn't he?”

Ever the proud mommy, I nodded in the affirmative.

“Why did you send him to kindergarten for,“ she reproached me with a belittling smile, “he's too young and doesn't have enough sense.”

The grin curdled on my lips. Was I hearing correctly?

“Do you know,” she continued with a (fake?) chuckle , “no matter how late he is, he just has to stop by and talk.”

Like it were a sin!

Trying not to lose my temper, I tried to tame the snarl that was forthcoming.

“He's a people person.” I retorted, praying I'd say nothing more. Praying my dominant hand wouldn't decide to tear up the credit card receipts she was sorting out on her desk (a personal business during work hours, if there ever was one.) and fling them in her face.

I left immediately, rabid thoughts seething through my mind as I made my way out.:

I'm a paying client, gosh darn her! But would she have given Woog a hard time if I chewed her out?

So he's late a couple of times. He's four years old, for crying out loud!

And if he's in kindergarten, so what? Don't his grades prove he belongs there?

And Madam, it is people like you who make it impossible for little kids like him to develop the self-esteem to be the persons they're meant to be.

A pox on you, a pox! May you have the fleas of a thousand camels...and all that....

I alternately congratulated (don't react, pro-act!) and castigated (you coward, why didn't you say anything?) myself on the way to the car. What a price to pay for the privilege of living in civilized society.

Atch had his own no-nonsense take on the incident: “That's why we're sending him to school. So he'll have enough sense. That's what you should have told her.”

And so I should have. I resolved to send her a dream that night. And hoped she would wake up screaming.

They don't burn witches anymore, do they?

Where Was I On Valentine's Day?

Where was I on Valentine's Day? Oh yeah, the husband and I took a leave from work so we could...do housework!

Hrhrhrhhr!

Hilarious, really. He installed some extension wiring for the second-hand washing machine and then I did the laundry. He oiled the squeaking electric fan, and I cleaned and put away the baby's old crib. He washed the car, and I buried some bell pepper and cornflower seeds for the pretensions of a garden I was starting.

I gathered all the empty rum bottles (his), all the empty wine bottles (mine), and all the empty milk cans (Eli's & Woog's), and we sold them to a junk shop for the paltry sum of twenty-nine pesos (roughly sixty cents), and we laughed our asses off for being so gullible. We should have dickered for more, Atch said, but at least the apartment was cleared of junk.

Finally, we bought a heart-shaped pillow and some belgian chocolate donuts in a heart-shaped can and presented them to Woog when we picked him up from school that day. The joy on his face was indescribable - it made our Valentine's Day near perfect. Who needs a candle-lit dinner or a bouquet of roses when you've got a heavily sentimental son who carries around a cheap red pillow and a dopey smile for the rest of the day?

After siesta, we left Woog and Eli asleep and sneaked out for some char-grilled burgers (be still, oh our budget-busting hearts!) and spent the rest of the afternoon browsing through some second-hand clothes at a flea market (I got me some great shirts at rock bottom prices, too).

It was a mundane and back-achey day, but it was a wonderfully family-filled day. And I am now at work and I am looking back at it with the greatest nostalgia.

Mine, Mine, All Mine! (Or the story of an anal-retentive family)

I remember all those eons ago when Atch and I were dating, he used to scold me for resting my bare feet on the dashboard of his car (“you’ll leave footprints!”). Heaven forbid I’d even lay my wide butt on its hood. When our marriage was new, I’d often catch him in mid-cringe whenever I popped cd’s into his beloved stereo. And the first time I cleaned his venetian blinds, he stood at my elbow issuing anxious directions, fearful I might bend them.

Obsessive-possessive, my Atch is. Particularly when it comes to what’s his. And in this respect, the boys take after their father.

Woog has just started along the road of the agonizingly difficult but ultimately rewarding sacrifice known as sharing. It took the longest time and the most adamant of urgings before we saw him hesitantly offering a plaything to his cousin Ia. Never mind it was one of his cast-offs. It was a good start. Now if only I can convince him to share his food.

Woog: My brother, mine! Mine!

Eli's not far away from the beaten path: this path of single-minded obesssion...este…devotion. This is one baby who will not be distracted from his plaything. Be it the thrice passed-down rattle he shakes furiously (inadvertently banging his nose and forehead) or a dog-eared flyer from the phone company he might have managed to snag in passing.

Attempt to pry it away from him and he’ll scream bloody murder. He'd have a death grip on the thing during mealtime, bathtime or bedtime, whichever time of the day it might happen to be. He refuses to be distracted, too. No matter how colorfully attractive said distraction is. Even if you wave it about his face. Nooo-ooo, not this boy.

The current object of fixation (as of one week, and counting) is a small green and yellow box the tube his xylitol teething gel came in. Could it be the reminder of blessed numbness the chilled gel gives his poor itchy-ouch gums, or even perhaps the fetching picture of a smiling girl-toddler in front, no one can say. He clutches tightly at his little box during diaper changes and at breakfast. And I have, in actual fact, seen it in dangling in his fat little fist as Yaya once lifted his sleeping form from stroller to crib. She tried to extract it from him, but the little guy held on steadfast and wouldn’t give, even uttered a little whimper of protest.

“Eli has a girlfriend….Eli has a girlfriend!” Woog chants in a teasing sing-song.

“…and her name is Xylogel-a!” Atch joins, second-voice.

Eli slices them a sharp sidelong glance that is eerily a twin of his father’s own. Still, he continues to clutch at that dilapidated box, occasionally crooning to it in low uni-syllables. Sometimes it finds its way into his mouth. Ah…the pride of ownership.

I shudder to think what these boys will be like when they reach the age of girlfriends. Will they make like superglue? Or will they be spraying their figurative pee to mark their territory? On second thought, perhaps it'll turn out to be the boys' dear old mother laying claim to “ownership” of her own when that time comes.

Will I be willing to let go? Time will tell. (and may it be a long time still, so help me...)

An Idiot's Guide To Cock Smashing. Or Husband Smashing. Whatever Works For You.

The tingle running up and down your spine that you used to have on every first day of school? Yes that's it. The notion that you've forgotten everything you've learned the previous year and the sinking feeling that you'd have to start all over? That's exactly it.

Rusty. You could almost feel the hinges of your joints squeak-creaking like the heavy doors in all those horror movies. Your palms are clammy and your grip slips...

Swoosh! You slice the air...and the cock sails harmlessly across your head, its crown feathers tittering in your ear in the mocking sing-song

(you'll never catch me... you'll never catch me...)

of kids who used to goad you at playground tag.

"Aifee, eyes on the ball!” Atch hisses through gritted teeth. “Move your feet!”

The score is 11 – 2 in favor of the opposing team and Atch is losing face in a big way.

It is our first badminton game in three years and we are playing doubles against two of Atch’s co-workers. Two of Atch’s young co-workers. They are lithe and quick and energetic, and above all, (did I mentioned this before?) young. How I envy their quicksilver forehands and monumental smashes. They rush forward and lunge and sidestep, their feet seeming like blurs on the rubberized court. They also call me “Ma’am”. (Oh, the shame!)

Finally, the game is over. The opposing dream team has won, 15 – 2. We walk back to the bench. I am out of breath and my cheeks are on fire. Atch has put on his poker face, but I can feel him seething, seething, seething.

So like Atchbund to make me feel unworthy without uttering so much as a word. I look at him and suddenly my crumpled self-esteem manages a modicum of outrage. “I haven't played in a long while, Atch, “ I blurt out defensively. “I haven't even had time to practice.”

“I know.”

His face remains as impassive as any heavily pancaked Japanese geisha's and so I try again.

“Its just a game, Atch, why are you acting like it's a life and death thing?”

Atch looks at me like I should know better, “its competition, Aifee. You just need to concentrate.”

What?! I join your frooking badminton game to have some fun and to raise my heart rate a little

(said heart rate not having risen this much since you got me knocked-up for the second time)

and I get the old “le visage blanche” for my trouble?

I immediately feel like putting his face through the strings of my old reliable second-hand Dunlop and I tell him as much.

“So why don't you?” He is bullish. The Atch-hole.

On the drive home, after half an hour of silence, Atch reaches out to give my hand a reassuring pat, “You just need to concentrate more, that's all.” And after a pause, “'Wuv-wuv, Aif!”

Remaining quarrelsome and resentful, I glare at him.

The following weekend when we go out to buy some newly-pirated 8-in-1 DVD's, I get a copy of the Badminton For Everyone. I make him pay for it.

He does.