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.

Woog (and Mom) Keep The Faith

Woog moans, forcing his eyes open to the sight of me shaking him gently awake. He turns his head to one side and sees Eli grinning a good morning and slobbering all over the nose of his Tigger plushy ("Tighh," Eli says, "Tighh.")

"Mom," Woog pleads , "did I wake up early?" His desperation is so palpable I wish I could reassure him.

I glance at the clock. 7:00 AM. "No Woog," I say regretfully into his hair, "because here I am, waking you up."

He is crushed. And I am crushed at his disappointment. Only Eli, still chewing on Tigger's threadbare snout, is oblivious to the swirling emotions in the air.

"But I prayed to Papa God last night to help me wake up early." Woog looks ready to cry.

Oh dear.

I'm in a pickle here. How do you reaffirm your child's budding faith and support him in accomplishing the first ever worthwhile goal he's set for himself?

I feel his tortured angst. Who else but a son of mine would beat himself up over imagined wrongs, and carry lengthy grudges over imagined slights. All in the first hour of waking up.

Like me, Woog is not a morning person. He is a struggling little sleepyhead who goes through an elaborate stretching-in-bed-before-thoroughly-waking-up ceremony, and an even more elaborate dawdling-over-breakfast-to-savor-every-bite-whilst-talking-nonstop ritual, before rushing to school at the unholy hour of 8:00 AM.

His parents and his teachers have been on his case for the last three years. Whether it's been our earnestness in convincing (nagging) him, or his classmates' teasing that's inspired him, we cannot tell, except that a couple of weeks ago, he suddenly decided he would ask for wake-up call assistance in his nightly prayers. "I'll dream about waking up early, Mom," he announced. How he has unwittingly stumbled upon motivation-through-visualization, I haven't an inkling. Needless to say, I am so freaking proud of him.

And I would like to tell him about my struggle for self-disicipline and willpower, and the terrible horrible battles I've fought through the years against sleepiness, laziness and half a dozen broken alarm clocks...but in the same vein, I am determined to shore up his trust and reliance on Papa God, upon Whom this family puts a lot of stock on.

"Woog," I proceed cautiously, "I know you feel bad about not waking up early, but didn't you wake up before everyone else the other day?"

A sniff. He remembers.

"Sometimes Papa God answers your prayer with "yes". Sometimes, when it's not good for you, He says "no". And mostly, when He wants you to be patient, He says "wait."

Woog is puzzled by this, "but I can't hear Him, and I prayed twice last night." My sweet innocent! He probably expects this huge booming voice issuing edicts from heaven.

"He'll speak to you in your heart," I tell him, with the beginnings of inspiration, "you'll hear Him there. And I promise, you'll feel much better. You just have to learn to listen with your heart."

At this point, I get over the feeling that I'm winging it, lost in the turbulent sea of parenting. It gets harder to present a front of competent authority as my child grows older and starts to question the world around him, and sometimes I feel like a fraud, conning my way through with fingers crossed, hoping against hope I'm doing/saying/showing the right thing, but somehow in the middle of my explanation, The Competent Authority spoke. And He spoke in my heart.

"Papa God wants you to learn patience, Woog. And to keep on praying to him. And if you can't wake up early, He'll send me to wake you up."

Woog is smiling, wriggling out of his pajamas. The idea of mom waking him up in the mornings appeals to the remaining fragments of babyhood in him. I send up a brief prayer of thanks. One morning scene deflected, a trillion more to look forward to.

Meanwhile, Eli has abandoned a poor damp Tigger and turned his attention to opening and closing Woog's cabinet, his fingers in squashing proximity to the slamming door. I rush to the rescue once again, this time feeling infinitely more capable.

Self-reliance? Sure. Reliance on Papa God's parenting skills? Even better.

And wouldn't you know? Woog got to school early today.