Right Here Right Now

It is a Saturday afternoon and I am busy on the computer. The graphics program I am working on is defying my powers of manipulation and I sigh in impatience as I wait for each picture to load.

I have finally found a sliver of time to work on something that has been much delayed and much put aside: updating my children's pictures for printing at the developers. While Woog has three full albums dating from a much simpler, less hectic time in our lives, Eli has not a single printed photo to his name. My poor deprived second-born.

Outside, the late afternoon sun is preparing to set and the muggy air squeezes itself like heavy syrup through the blinds. The boys are in the courtyard, slathered within an inch of their lives in insect repellent, making the most of the remaining daylight like all little boys under the age of 60.

I can see that Woog is finally getting up the gumption to give his bike another try. His Tatay has removed the training wheels almost a year ago, and after one nasty near-spill, my nervous balance-challenged son declared himself officially unfit for his scarily unfamiliar two-wheeled contraption.

Apparently the humidity is starting to affect his brain somewhat, for he is enthusiastically mounting upon his monster, giving it another chance. My breath hitches in my throat the first few times he tilts alarmingly from side to side, but the last several months have seen his spindly legs lengthen and his reflexes improve. He jumps away agilely just as the bike falls on its side. After this happens several times in succession, I relax and return to my work.

I am carefully editing an image when Woog shrieks, “Mom! Mom! Look at me!” causing my mouse hand to jerk and sharpen a photo all the way to white noise land. After a quick irate glance out the window to reassure myself that his knees are still completely covered in unbroken skin, I call out a cursory “Yes, Woog, ok.” before returning to a shot of him and Eli wrestling with each other on the big bed.

He keeps up a loud and steady litany of “Mom! Mom! Look!” until the sound fades away in my ears like so much background noise, and I lose myself in billions of pixels and RGB adjustments.

A little while later, he decides to pump up the volume: “Mom! Mom! Look! Look!” I sigh in resignation and prepare to tell him off for bothering me. But as I stand up to do so, I catch a gloriously heartbreaking sight of Woog pedalling a few unsteady meters before losing his balance, jumping off and landing like a cat. Eli is cheering him on, laughing and skipping dangerously close to his wobbly bicycle-bound brother.

Oh, Woog.

I run outside just in time to see him do it again. “Mom!” He laughs excitedly. “I know how to ride my bike!” And the wide wonderful smile on his sweaty face is an accomplishment in itself.

He shows me, again and again and again. And I clap my hands each time he manages to stay on a little longer. Here is a milestone happening right before my eyes, and I am a nincompoop for nearly missing it.

“Great job, Woog!” I salute my budding cyclist. He is tired and streaks of dirt are smeared where he has swiped away at his sweaty skin. But he is insanely happy, and I am intensely proud.

Collating my children's pictures suddenly seems so trivial. And I feel the urge to hit myself on the head for placing more importance on preserving memories over a more vivid present happening right in front of my nose.

Lord, may I remember this lesson each time. Amen.

Have Car, Will Push

Woog and Eli are joint owners of a vintage 60-plus-year-old cherry red convertible that has been lovingly (and not so lovingly) passed down through the ages. This is what they do when they run out of gas...

1-year-old pushes 5-year-old

Lasterday's Ka-chum-chum and Other Variations of Communication

I am listening to how my family talks, something I normally take for granted in the everyday rush of things, and I am amused to discover that over the course of time, we have developed an internal language that only the four of us can understand.

I wouldn't be surprised if every family in the world has their own version of it: a dialect rich in context and bearing its own long-winded origins. The sort of talk that crops up at the dinner table, or is thrown absently over the shoulder as one goes out the door, the kind that causes puzzled looks from outsiders living just beyond our tight-knit little circle of four.

“Ba-buscht!” Atch exclaims, very like a minor Nazi potentate, and no one is surprised when only Eli responds, shrieking-running-laughing into his father's arms. On the other hand, a scoffing “Daw sa ba-buscht ka!” (You ba-buscht, you!) succinctly describes one's apparent lack of humor and understanding, usually accompanied by a playful (and sometimes painful) pinch on the tummy. It is also not uncommon for me to be on the pinching end of the deal.

It will do no good to explain that “ba-buscht” is predominantly the creation of a 16-month-old Woog who used to scream “Ba-buscht! Pa-pah-boom!” - phrases that might have meant something, or anything - while evading his father's frustrated attempts at a bearhug.

Or that one of the many ways guaranteed to get Woog to behave is an ominous “Can we trust you?” And the very solemnity of its utterance calls forth the discordant crashing of a church organ playing a funeral march in the background. Woog, wide-eyed with the weight of consequence, settles down with a quavering “yes.”

Of course, a simple “do you want to get whupped?” always gets the message across, but this in this family, we live for the drama.

The first few times Eli said “Mom-Mom”, I fluttered up to cloud 9. Until “Mom-Mom” turned out to be a word he deployed to suit his purposes. As in “Mom-Mom” (pointing to his sippy cup), or “Mom-Mom” (pointing to a toy car just out of reach), or endearingly “Mom-Mom” (lifting his arms to be carried). I belatedly realize that his lack of an intelligible working vocabulary leaves him no choice in the matter. Incidentally, he uses the “Mom-Mom” routine on his nanny, as well.

In the middle of the night, he cries out in a nasty dream, and if his mother still snores in neverland, Atch rises to comfort him. “Ka-chum-chum,” Atch murmurs, settling the whimpering toddler on his chest, “it's alright, poor ka-jam-jam boy, Tatay's here l'Arlel, ka-chum-chum.” And the use of the magic non-words sends Eli hurtling back into slumber.

“Dubby, Aif.” Atch says before he leaves. “Dubby, Atch,” I say in return. Dubby, as if one didn't know, has evolved from that all too common expression of love everyone seems to throw around. In our family, it has taken on a new twist. Dubby. Dub-dub. Da-la-lub-wub. Take your pick.

Sometimes, even our peculiar language is a source of confusion. As in “Mom, lasterday the teacher said to bring my baby picture to school,” Woog says. And it will take some figuring out on my part whether “lasterday” refers to yesterday, the day before that, or even the week before. In Woog's lexicon, “lasterday” may refer to any given day in the past.

Some words are more colorful than most (announce a “weekee”, and the kids scamper away squealing), others are steeping in scatological inference (“Did you make mush, Eli?”), and some are uttered in a deliciously secret whisper (“Bangy-wang-wang later?”). Others still are decendants of words passed down from both sides of the family (“Mom, my gû hurts so much I made puffa.”).

I wonder if someday, sometime way way in the future, our descendants will start conversing in some totally evolved alien tongue that anthropologists will need to document it.

Won't that be interesting?

Deedee...

I did not kick your head!

(...did I?)

Of course, I didn't. Else there would be one legal editor walking around today with a hefty dent in her noggin. So there.

Still, thanks for the pimp job. One can always count on family. So in return....here's to you.