Moral of the Story: Trying to Stuff a Month's Worth of Stories Into a Single Post Will Play Hell on Your Cohesion

Time flies like a demented loon out of the forest of good intentions.

I am trying to shoot for a good metaphor here, instead I end up gunning down said demented loon out of my grammatical stratosphere. Or at least I try to. Because as time is moving ever onward, the only dementia that's left is clinging in tattered entrails to my frantic typing fingertips, trying to make up for lost time (and posts) on this blog.

In the amount of time I was on "blog sabbatical", Woog went through a frightening week-long asthma attack, reminiscent of the ones I used to have as a kid. His was brought about by a now-you-see-it-now-you-don't appetite and a staunch refusal to honor siesta hour. With a weakened resistance, the poor bugger succumbed to wheezing and hacking at the first touch of the cold.

Needless to say, we drowned him in anti-allergens, smoked him silly with his nebulizer, and whupped his stubborn ass each time he conveniently "forgot" a noon meal or his afternoon nap. After each whipping, we sat down with frowning growling Mr. Obstinate, trying to sooth his hurt with some well-meant parental platitudes.

The following vacation day (one among the many other ill-placed holidays declared by an ill-placed president), we took him out for a long scenic drive and tried to stuff him with food. We'd have liked to think we were successful, or perhaps it was his new appetite stimulant cum vitamin supplement, because in the weeks that followed, he started eating and sleeping again. We threw in a full body massage each night (with efficascent oil yet!) each time he met his food and nap quota. How he purred!

Food again?!

What a lucky thing to discover massage as a bribe for good behavior. I wonder if any other desperate parent has come up with equally unusual solutions.

Robust mom, frail son

Meanwhile, the 13-month-old had developed a temperament that ran the full range of the spectrum. He'd go from saccharine sweet to viciously angry in a matter of seconds, uttering harsh staccato barks, hands darting like quicksilver to yank on his Manong Woog's hair. Or rake down our startled faces. Maybe he was frustrated about the excruciatingly slow speed of his first tottering steps, who knows? But in the two weeks that brought him into his 14th month, he went from wobbling little piglet to prancing little piglet, leaving his handlers (two parents and a nanny) plumb out of breath. As part of his daily routine, he'd scuttle up the stairs to the very top, look down from his dizzying height, then wail in a panic for someone to help him down again.

He walks. Finally.

But despite his swift progress, the temper remained. An early caveat about what to expect from him at Terrible Two? We shudder at the thought.

Eli on top of the world

One morning, under a slight drizzle, he made it out the front door and glanced up the drainpipe, hoping for a gush of water to dunk his hands under. Denied that pleasure, he turned his attention on the droplets of rain dotting his grandfather's car. Ooooh! By the time we caught up to him, he was damp and giggling. Eyes lost in the folds of his cheeks, drool mingling with the raindrops on his chin.

It may very well have been the same kind of curious excitement that led his Manong Woog to play with the new set of kitchen knives in the new knife block the day before, losing him a night's massage in the bargain.


Hah! Massage as both positive and negative reinforcement. Who'd have thought it'd work?

In other sad news, my second hand rose died. It is currently serving as compost for my growing sunflowers. Atch made it up to me by buying me some celery. The stalks I chopped and incorporated into our workday meat sandwiches, the leaves garnished Woog's favorite pancit, and the roots I buried in a pot where they are growing fresh shoots even as I type. Thanks to all this rain.


And it is still raining. It has been raining all week. It is flooded from China all the way to Ghana, and our damp days-old wash hangs in sodden downcast flags, sometimes blowing three sheets to sudden gusts of wind.


Oh, what I'd give for a touch of sunshine and some thoroughly dry underwear!

Second-hand Rose

The bank where Atchbund works celebrated it's third anniversary lately. The following day, inspired by an outflowing from the deep well of thoughtfulness that springs forth from wherever, my husband plucked a rose from one of the congratulatory baskets sent by a well-wisher.


"Here's your flower, Aifee," he announced dramatically when he got home, handing me a deep scarlet rose in the last stages of full bloom.


"Where'd you get this?" I asked, half ecstatic that he'd finally gotten my thinly veiled hints, and half mournful at the memory of the elaborately arranged dozen roses I used to get from him all those aeons ago, it seemed.


Atch being Atch, blurted out the whole bald truth with no regard to his wife's finer sensibilities: "It was the bank's anniversary yesterday."


Ah...so that explained the bluntly cut stem and the two wistful remaining leaves.


I put on a cheerful face anyway and threw myself into his arms, "Thank you, thank you for my second-hand rose! You're so sweet!"


He pouted at my sarcasm, offended.


I unearthed a styrofoam cup from the pantry and plunked the rose into it with water, placing the sad-looking arrangement atop the fridge, where it gazed upon the family eating dinner that night from its place of honor.


Later, when everyone was asleep, my second-hand rose and I contemplated each other in the kitchen's dark. "Hello, second-hand rose, " I said.


"Hello," it said back, "you never seem to appreciate your husband."


"Ouch. You don't pull your punches, do you? And a rose at that."


"Let me tell you a story, " it began. "Once there was a man and wife married for twenty odd years or so. The wife complained, 'in all our years of marriage, you never once gave me flowers.' And her husband shot back, 'well, you've never once made me a cup of coffee in the mornings.' "


I gaped at my second-hand rose. It was silent.


I stood and made my way up to bed, shaking thoughts of The Little Prince out of my head (Tired. I'm just tired, that's all. Holding conversations with a half-dead flower, 'sus).


The next morning, I took the rose (outer petals drooping) out of its styrofoam cup and carefully planted it with the sunflowers I was growing in a pot. If it gets lonely, it'll have a couple of other plants to lecture to. Assuming it lives.


"Hey, Atch," I joked in the car on the way to work, "I guess I'll have to wait for the bank's next anniversary to get more flowers. Second-hand daisy, maybe? Even second-hand baby's breath. Ha-ha!"


He pouted again, but he wasn't so thick he didn't get the joke.


Apparently, I hold that honor.

Eli Gets His Period

I buy sanitary napkins for my 13-month-old son. No kidding.

From the time he'd turned one, he'd started leaking out of his night diapers. Do you know how much of a hassle it is to get up from sweet (finally!) sweet sleep to change a whimpering toddler who'd soaked through his eight-peso-per-piece XL diapers and burnt a pungent spot on the fragrant sheets, as well?

Much too much. And just when Eli had started to sleep through the night, too.

Two XL diapies - sixteen pesos - a night. Extra laundry-ables from damp pajamies. Two extra sheets of wet wipes to scrub urine spot. Electricity wasted blow-drying bedsheets in the dead of the night. Above all, an upset baby with broken sleep. Much too much.

The next grocery day, we looked at diaper options. Pull-ups? Nah. Eli can't do pull-ups. He hasn't even started walking yet. And at twenty pesos a pop? Fwah!

XXL varieties? At fourteen pesos each??! They're kidding, right? Might as well do a milk formula downgrade to keep him in these.

Atch and I were actually considering sticking a long plastic bag (the ones they use to make ice candy) to the tip of the baby's willy each night with micropore tape. Sort of like a catheter-wee bag. (Yes, we really are cheapeskate crazy). Until we imagined Eli rolling over, busting the bag, and gushing a whole night's urine quota unto the mattress. Oh, eeeewwie!

We went home frustrated. But as surely as necessity is the mother of invention, it was a relative no-brainer attaching one of my sanitary pads to Eli's diaper. A bit bulky in the crotch, maybe. But he didn't seem to mind.



The next day, we all woke up rested, happy and leak-free. But above-all, within budget (eight peso diapy + two peso sanitary napkin = ten pesos per night. Hah!).

Yaya Merly can't get over it, she continually chuckles about Eli getting his period every night. Eli chuckles right along with her.


We realize this is temporary. Pretty soon (but not too soon, we hope) he's going to leak out of this layered nightly contraption. How do you toilet train a 13-month-old who still doesn't walk?


I guess we'll cross the bridge when we get there.

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

What do you call a toddler-to-be who has just discovered the joys of climbing stairs?

"Eli! Stop! Get Away From There!"

... and a lot of other panic-based expletives better left within the private confines of our apartment.

Eli is thirteen months old and has yet to take his first step. He pulls himself up and navigates among the furniture, letting go to stand alone for minutes at a time, only to lose confidence and fall back down on hands and knees to speed-crawl his way across the floor.

He has tried getting a leg up the water dispenser bottle. Ho-hum. And the sack of rice. Boooring. Then right about the same time his Manong Woog dispensed with afternoon naps altogether, he discovered the stairs. All two sets of them.

In a cautiously daring expedition, he scooted over to the vertical wonder from whence he'd often observed giants going up and down. Pullling himself up the first step, he lifted one leg, trembling. Then back down. Leg up again. Then back down.

Finally, resolutely locking his full lower lip, he brought himself up two steps before we all turned our heads to check on his whereabouts. Yaya screamed. Needless to say, we screamed along with her.

Hair-raising episode notwithstanding, we are tentatively looking to see how this latest caper goes. Under extremely close supervision, of course. Who knows, we may just be raising the future rock climbing champion.

In pretty much the same way champions are made, Woog just recently decided to champion his own cause - constant wakeful awareness. In particular, during the period normally designated for his afternoon nap.

I read up on afternoon naps for children and discovered that around this stage, five-year-olds normally forsake siesta for other worthier pursuits - like Disney Channel marathons or engaging in wrestling matches with a five-inch Transformers action figure.

However, put in the perspective of his slight, constantly asthmatic figure, his father and I had to put our foot down. It isn't an amusing pasttime having to painstakingly explain the addition of two-digit numerals while your drowsy student hangs his head sleepily during homework nights. By 8pm, he is a useless wreck.

Atch went up the slippery roof one rainy evening and removed Woog's cable channel connection. We told endless stories over the dinner table about how our respective fathers would whup us soundly for not observing the afternoon siesta rule. I described my belt-weals in graphic detail. Atch related the time he attempted to evade nap time by going over the family gate. His great escape was foiled when he slipped and grazed his temple on a pointed metal spoke. He ended the blood-splattered tale by showing wide-eyed Woog his scar.

Still, no go. Woog continued to remain awake during siesta hour. In the face of his delicate heath and a particularly nasty asthma attack.

We've even considered whupping his narrow ass. *Sigh*

Meanwhile, our younger son has taken on the highly entertaining hobby of single-fingeredly slaying ants. Ummm! He'd go, squashing their tiny bodies with his fat forefinger, even as his Manong Woog whimpers away from the creatures.

What a cha-cha this is! Two steps forward, one step back, swinging our hips for balance, raising our sons in this frenzied dance called life. And praying, constantly praying, that we get all the steps right.