Sippy Symphonies

That's it? That's all there is?

I can get 8 whole ounces out of my bottle.

This sippy cup is waaaaaay overrated. Bleachh.

Baby on The Brink

You there, Pokey Bear. Why do you blatt on so? Your mouth is an overturned cereal bowl glistening with saliva and tiny rice teeth.

It pains me to see you, twisting and turning in Yaya’s grasp, your arms pathetically held out to me. Wailing.

I hate leaving you like this. I imagine you must be thinking: why are Tatay and Mommy and Manong Woog leaving again? It must be such a fun place for them to be going everday.

Poor, pet. You’re too young to understand that we’re going because we have to, not because we want to.

Wait. I speak for myself. Manong Woog loves school (thank Papa God for that) and Tatay enjoys bossing his people around (so he won’t have to boss us around at home. Thank Papa God for that, too).

As for me, Baby-boo, I would like to stay home and hold you to my chest until you quiet down and hug me tight, patting my back with one hand like I was the one in need of comfort. Perhaps I am.

Such a month it has been for us, no? Sleepless and snot-filled. Fearless and fast. Time has pulled you forward and forward at such dizzying speed. Why, last month you hardly crawled at all! Now you scuttle across the floor like one of the crabs Manong Woog was chasing all over the beach last summer.

(Remember how I nearly died of fright last night when I got back from checking on Manong Woog and found you had woken up and crawled to the very edge of the big bed?)

Last month, you had four teeth, now you have six. Your awful cold morphed into a chest-rattling cough, and it scared me to listen to you hack half the night away, until you puked into my neck and soaked my hair with phlegm and half-digested milk. Poor ‘Poke. Such a lot of weight you’ve lost. Even my arms don’t ache as much when I carry you around these days.

I keep thinking we have to make up for lost time. Then I remember…time has brought you to the here and now. Time has brought you clear into the brink of this eleventh hour of your eleventh month, where you nonchalantly let go of your grip on the tv rack or the sofa or the bureau drawers, and stand alone for minutes at a time while I hold my breath, my heart in my throat. And you are laughing. Laughing.

You will be cruising soon, and I must prepare all of my nerve for that. You will be turning a year old, as well. And ever more curious, too. It is all Manong Woog can do not to shoo you away from his toy shelf after you’ve tired of opening and exploring all the drawers and cabinets within your reach.

Don’t cry so, my Pet-a-poo. Tatay is leaning on the horn, and I must get to work, else I’ll end up not going. Yaya urges you to wave goodbye, and you make a half-hearted gesture with your hand before you remember that I’m leaving, and you bawl harder than ever.


I force myself to walk away, and I’m hoping you might call out “Mommm-mom-mom-mommm!” like you did last weekend from your crib with your arms held out to be carried – I might just end up staying, who knows - but all you do now is yowl fit to break my heart.

Hush-hush, Poke-poke. I’ll see you again, I promise. Tonight, when I get home, I’ll hug you so tight and tickle you so hard, you’ll forget that you ever were so sad.

See you later, Eli-gator. You take care. Papa God bless you.

And Mom-mom wuvs you soooo much!

The Mommy-Guilt Phenomenon

Not so very long ago, I was having an in-depth chat with a former lawschool classmate during her baby's first birthday. Subject in question: mommy-hood. In particular, mommy-guilt.

What is it with us mommies? Why do we subject ourselves to an absurd amount of guilt for things not done and left undone.

For her, the guilt often came whenever she took time to have her nails done prior to a hearing in court ("Oh my poor baby, why did I leave her? I wonder if she's crying out for me right now"). Despite having fully breastfed her daughter, despite having stayed up late cooking, oesterizing and freezing three day's worth of personalized baby food, despite the sleepless nights and the backbreaking days trotting protectively after an early walker...she still felt guilty.

Why is this so? And why is this so universal among mommies alone? Where do the daddies figure in all this? Are they ever tormented by the guilt of parenting inadequacy?

The other night, I was helping Woog with his homework, trying to take it slow for his sake, and yet continually glancing up at the clock, hoping to finish before an hour was up, which from painful experience, is Woog's breaking point as far as homework is concerned. "We're running out of time, Woog," I finally warned, "so please concentrate."

Immediately, a wave of intense guilt washed over me. Why was I harassing my son? Wasn't it my job to guide him lovingly and patiently through this tiresome repetitious task which will occupy a fourth of his life for the next 14 to 16 years? What kind of a mother am I?

At the same time, I worried about Eli somewhere downstairs, either in the care of his nanny or snoozing in his stroller. I felt another twinge of guilt about not spending enough time with him. We hardly ever have time to read a book together before his bedtime rolls around. And feeling guilty about my inability to cellularly subdivide into several super mommies to accomplish everything somehow seemed like an appropriate emotion for the occasion.

I do not just feel guilty like this once a month, or once a week. I feel this way almost as often as I think of my sons. That compulsion to provide for one's children to the best of one's mothering abilities - from pregnancy to childbirth, from breastfeeding to nurturing, from teaching to supporting - and falling short of one's own expectations, is one hell of a lousy emotion to go through Every. Single. Day. And yet I still do feel this way. Apparently, so do most of the other mothers I interact with.

Yesterday, I was part of a support group that empathized with a fellow mommy co-worker, who sobbed in our collective arms about the problems she was having with her older son - a love-addled fellow who wouldn't quit stalking the girl of his dreams, said terrified girl having reported the incidents to her mother, his mother, and the police (!!!)

My co-worker cried, "What have I done wrong? Haven't I done everything I could to raise him right?"

Again, the guilt weights heavily on the mommy's heart.

Is it our pre-determined gender-ingrained roles that keep us feeling this way? Not so long ago, the daddies brought home the bacon. Now, most of us mommies do, too. Did the generations of women before our time, who stayed at home, kept the house and raised the children, ever feel this way? I may be extremely fortunate to be a working mom, and yet I am irrationally guilty about how this dual role limits the time I spend with my kids. Puzzle that conundrum out.

And the daddies? Today's fathers have taken an increasingly hands-on role in the raising of their children. My husband is one (and I am so insanely proud of him for that). But do they feel the same deep remorse after having spoken curtly to their children? Or spanked them, for that matter? Atch being Atch, simply takes everything in stride. For him, what's done is done. No going over and over the incident wishing he could've done things differently. Gently. Less abruptly.

Like a male co-worker who was talking excitedly the other week about the recent promotion he received. His dream job, he said. Said dream job requiring him to move to the mother office several regions away, relocating his wife (who happens to have a successful retail career here) and his daughter (who'd just gotten settled in school and formed her own circle of friends). Not one iota of guilt there. In his place, what would a mommy do?

I realize mommies today would need to ease up on their harsh expectations of themselves and come to terms with the reality of what they're capable of doing - and not doing. We're not out to raise serial killers or bank robbers or even stalkers. We're here to mother. And if our hearts are softer, more vulnerable and prone to guilt than most, then so be it. If we weren't made that way, there wouldn't be any mommies around at all.

The Making of Home-Sweet-Home

Well, now. It's been quite a while since I've been here. I've been kind of obsessed busy with an on-and-off obsession hobby I've had since I got hitched - planning our dream home. It's a wonder I've actually gotten back to blogging about this family. When I get hooked on something, I become totally enslaved engrossed. To the exclusion of all else. (Which is why I am constantly reminding myself to go easy on Woog as he turns a deaf ear on all and sundry whenever Shawn The Sheep... or Totally Spies... or Jake Long, is on. He has to have gotten this trait from someone in his family. Besides, his tv viewing has been limited to weekends since school started. So, getting one's gander up about one's catatonic son is not a very productive thing to do. But that's another story).

A couple of weeks ago, we attended the house blessing of our good friends, a lovely couple with four kids who set up shop in the same neighborhood where we bought our residential lot. And boy, was their home drool-worthy!

I slavered over the life-sized rocky waterfall formation just beyond their lanai. I lingered over my hazy reflection on each step of the oiled Narra staircase. I ran my fingers along the granite-tops of the kitchen counters, went full rotation around the island worktable. I kept returning to the wonder of the white wooden blinds, and Atch had to forcibly pull me away from the spacious walk-in closet just as the opening prayer began.

Don't even get me started on their lushly landscaped garden and brick window planters.

When we made that first downpayment on our little plot of land two years ago, I made copies of the lot plan and started sketching the lay-out of our future home-sweet-home. With no architectural experience whatsoever, not even access to a downloaded Auto-CAD program, I spent precious hours on what Atch deemed a waste of time ("That's totally premature, Aif. We have to pay off the lot before we start on the house."). After decimating reams of paper and turning a deaf ear to the husband's exhortations, I finally put my dream on the backburner. But not totally forgotten, no.

That house warming party brought it all back.

On the last two days of his vacation, I had Atch drive me all over the city (I knew he was good for something), looking at furniture and house design. I wanted to go into the private subdivisions to take pictures but Atch put his foot down. No sense getting arrested for invasion of other people's privacy.

My enthusiasm was catching. Finally the major financier of the family estimated we had just about made it more than halfway through with the lot payments, it was time to think of renewing the bank loan for the...*gasp*...house of my our dreams. Atch can really be useful once he sets my his mind to it.

We turned over the much-abused, dog-eared lot plan to the contractor brother-in-law for a rendering of an honest-to-goodness house plan. I also handed in a couple of others I copied from the internet (much rolling of eyes on Atch's part), for additional perspective.


I intentionally refrained from mentioning the fully appendiced table of finishing and furnishings (from roof material to paint and fabric color, from flooring to furniture) that I'd painstakingly prepared, complete with sample photos. One thing at a time. Now that I’ve we've gotten the ball rolling, I've got all the time in the world to inch my way through as foreman (Or forewoman. Whatever does you).

Nice, no?

Not that I'm under-appreciating my pragmatic and pennywise bitter better half. He ultimately sees things my way, and for that I adore the socks off of him. Not that I'm discounting the major role that Papa God plays in our life. We lay our plans before Him, and we let Him decide. And I'm so very glad He has decided in our favor.

So I'm easing back to spend time with this here blog, preparing to stoke my energies to take on this this much-awaited future task with all the gusto I can muster.

Good luck to us. And God bless our future home.

Dream home, here we come!