Wet Summer Nights

I opened my eyes and saw Qube standing over and intently staring at me. At 230 in the morning! Then when he saw that I am awake, said: “Mama, maihi ako!” (Mama, I need to pee!). And just like that, drowsy and still half-dreaming, I had to jump out of bed and dash to the bathroom with Qube amid all the pillows that have already become our nighttime fortress.

It’s been like that for the past few weeks. Whenever I hear the word “maihi (pee)” in the wee hours of the morning, I swear I could literally feel adrenaline surging through my brains and see sirens flashing rapidly in the background as I carry Qube off the bed and into the bathroom.

And success for both of us means being able to outrun his wee-wee. Afterwards, Qube would proudly say: "Wow, dae basa ang briefs!" (Wow, the briefs did not get wet!")

When we go back to the bedroom, he’d go right back to sleep, oblivious to the mini heart attack that I just went through.

Let me make it clear though, these early morning frenzies are great sources of pride for all potty training moms like me. And no, I am not exaggerating when I described how it is like whenever Qube feels the urge to urinate in the middle of our sleep. Oh, and yes, the husband* is usually fast asleep while this is happening.

Things have not always been like this, though. We've also had our share of waking up to a wet mattress and blankets, and being forced to change clothes and replace the bed covers with extra thick ones at three in the morning. And if it is not obvious enough, these instances also equate to having to sleep with dried urine on our bodies. So, you have to understand my panic to reach the bathroom when a chance presents itself to save us from literal wet sleeps. And lately, it's been presenting itself every night. To my relief.

Sometimes  it’s tempting to go back to the comforts of the disposable diapers. But, as pointed out by the husband*, this is a necessary step for Qube to achieve diaper-independence.

I have long readied myself emotionally for these, though we only started to seriously train Qube to use the potty during the Easter break. And forgive me for bragging, but I can proudly say that despite being a working mom and all, I was the one who made him pee inside the bathroom. The first time, the second time, and the third time the same day. While there were lapses during the next few days, that first day success was what convinced him to try the potty again the next day, and the day after, until it has become his daily routine.

These days, whenever Qube says: "Tara, maihi kita!" in the middle of his play, you'll be amused to see all of us (Yaya, me, the husband*) drop whatever we are doing and run to his side to usher him to the bathroom.

To be rewarded with his grin and this statement: "Wow, very good na ako!"

Sugar, sugar!

The husband* has caught the candy bug.

If you noticed that I haven’t progressed much in Candy Crush Saga, or that I have not been responding to your SOS requests, it’s because I have not been playing this game lately – but the husband* does and using my phone. So whenever he is eager for me to get home after work, I try not to flatter myself into thinking that it’s me he wants to see. True enough, in less than a minute of seeing each other, he would ask for my phone and begin to totally ignore me.

We are now at Level 202 and stuck there.

Much as I want to play when I have lulls in the office, I can’t because of two reasons:

• The level looks fairly easy and I could finish it in a breeze, but it is one of the rare chances for the husband* to finish one level, so I might as well give him this chance; and
• I might actually find it difficult to move to the next level and consume all five lives. Since it will take a while before those get replenished, I don’t want to risk his wrath when the husband* finds out that he has no available candy lives to play with.

You think it ends there? One of the things that I have to ensure is having adequate battery life for when he starts playing. And of course, the requisite “Wow! You did great!”  when he is two moves short to finishing one level.

This is not to say though that we lack deep cerebral conversations. We actually set aside time to discuss and visualize situations and scenarios that, no doubt, will be very important in decision-making and as we go about our everyday lives. Scenarios like:

Him:  What would happen if we have two on the left, two on the right, two more vertically at the center above our first four similar-colored candies, and we push one candy from below to the center in between the two-and-two?

Me: We’ll have a cookie.

Him: But it’s not fair, it should be a super combo. It should be a cookie inside a candy wrapper!

Me: Yeah, but really, you only get a cookie.

Him: I don’t believe you.

Or:

Him: Do you know how many candies can we combine max?

Me: No.

Him: I think nine is possible.

Me: No, I don’t think so.

Him: Really, it’s possible.

Me: No, I can’t imagine that.

(End of discussion)

...and others like that.

Here's hoping this does not become another failed attempt.

For a lot of things.

Creating a worthwhile blog entry, for one. Because it has been six months since I last published here – either I have been busy or been simply too lazy to think, much more to write. 

The impenetrable web protocols at work is not helping either.

Qube's babyhood has gone by in a breeze without me being able to document each monumental step, literally and figuratively. Save for the occasional twitter and facebook posts, I haven’t been able to write at all.

Even the sort of writing that one just keeps to herself.  Hmmm. Now I am suddenly reminded to put in writing the mental notes that I have been keeping for quite a time now. Though I would have to muster enough courage for that.

Just a few hours ago, I was torn between panic and amusement because I (again) noticed posts in my twitter feeds which I did not make because I was then in the office, working my ass off, oblivious to the rest of the world. Well… not entirely true, but still. The point is, somebody else was posting on my behalf – of high scores in slam dunk, song quiz and fruit ninja. And if you think a one year, nine month old baby can't do that? Think again. 

Sometimes Most times, I am convinced that my child is a genius. How else could I explain him being able to recognize numbers zero through nine, regardless of what he is doing when you ask him? Or his ability to distinguish colors and make it sound like the most normal thing that a baby should know? Or, just a few minutes ago, the way he was searching for the "clear page" icon on his drawpad, and successfully finding it on the first try, the second, and all other succeeding tries, moments after he saw me pressing it to erase his scribbles to make space for new ones? 

Well, truth is, all mothers feel the same pride for their children. On my part, this pride is coupled with the prospect of us getting famous through him, and probably earning millions when, being the "superbaby" that he is, he'd discover something big that would revolutionize life as we know it. Hehe.

If the above does not prove successful, yours truly would seriously consider being a stagemom, given the "ahem" really good looks that he has. 

WARNING: Do not, for one moment, mistake this as conceit on my part. I am merely playing with possibilities. And a chance to earn BIG.

Like the possibility of him becoming a basketball superstar at nine-years old (that would be less than eight years from now). In our plans, the husband and I have even gone as far as planning to bribe his grade school coach so that he'd get drafted in his school's varsity basketball team. Justifying it as a necessary move so he won't be disillusioned so early, just in case.

If that, too, fails? There’s football.

Anyways, what's so special about this stage is that I could look at him building his LEGOs and think that he’ll probably design the next skyscraper wonder of the world, with his name etched on top of it (and probably have a lady CEO named Pepper). Or see him obsessing over his small stable of cars and conclude that he’ll become the first Filipino F1 car racing champion. Or see him playing Punch Hero on the iPad and decide that, well, he’ll probably get over it in a few days.

All these dreams I could see in him without (yet) being pressured to fulfill any one of it. Let’s see where it takes us in a few years.

But tonight, what’s real is the sleeping baby on my lap who clings on whenever I make an attempt to put him down on the bed, refusing to let go even to just let Mama pee.

you (don't always) say it best, when you say nothing at all.

You were apologizing for not being able to update your blog anymore.

You said you are just happy and content. I know that already - although hearing you say it makes it more real than just me knowing and feeling it. I have to admit that your words made me a little bit happier and a little bit more adequate. As a mother and a wife.

But this is not to say that I accept your excuse for not writing. On the contrary, your statement merely reinforces why you need to write: for me, for Qube. Sometimes, a simple validation spells the difference between real and imagined emotions. Not that I have doubts, it's just that I want us to capture in words all that our hundreds and probably even thousands of photos (already) with Qube cannot show. I want us to be able to tell him his story as crisp as when we experienced them, and not as blurry recollections of two old people that we will eventually become.

I, too, am happy and content. And I have allowed a lot of Qube's significant firsts to pass without writing about them because, whenever I start writing, my words always seem to diminish their meaning, how I felt about them and, hard as i try, they are simply too big to fit into one blog entry. 

But i guess whatever I will come up with is still better than not having anything to tell at all.

So today, while I try to narrow down my list and write about each one of them, I need you to help me out.

Mondays are for remembering everything that makes everyday special.

Today I woke up and kissed my still sleeping Qube. Much as I wanted to wake him, I could not. Else, I'll have a hard time trying to (physically) detach him from me as I prepare myself for work. So all I can do was look at him and marvel at how fast he is growing up, and smiled at the realization that he now exhibits the smarts to go with his good looks. Thank You God for these.

For perfect evenings that cap my days, and for a husband who is far from perfect but is trying soo so hard to be one, thank You.

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Long overdue tribute to my father.

He wanted to be an engineer. But life was hard and he had two sons to support. Working as a tailor during the day, he went to night school and took up Education instead. He graduated and became a teacher when his eldest son finished primary school.


He had his life mapped out without room for errors, because he knew that one miscalculated step could break his dream of a decent future for his family. He was uptight, he was strict, he seldom showed emotion because emotions cloud reason, and he did things with as much accuracy and perfection as possible, as much as he could.

This was my father.

He demanded a lot from us, especially from my brothers.

One anecdote that my eldest brother loves repeating to us was the time Papa talked to him when he was about to enter college. Papa asked him not to fail any subject, it did not matter if it was a major or minor subject, because if he failed a subject, he would extend school and it would, in turn, delay my other brother’s entry to college (My parents had spaced the birth of my brothers by five years because they could not send both children to college simultaneously).

And my brother did just that, and so did my other siblings.

With the very few resources that my parents had, they made sure that we did not lack on everything we need, and they were able to send and have all four of us graduate in the best schools in the province.

My siblings used to tell me that Papa was not as strict with me as he was with them when they were growing up. Still, there had been times in the past when I kept on wishing that he’d be like other fathers who give their children money as baon in school, who allow their kids to play with others in the neighborhood, who do not demand explanations for less than stellar grades in Math and English, who allow their teenage girls to party with no 11pm curfews.

He was strict, there was no mistaking that. He was the kind of father you do not want to disappoint. And although he used to censure us openly, he was also proudest whenever he talks to his friends about his children – about us.

He kept all of my medals, certificates, awards, from the time I started school and showed them to friends every opportunity that he gets. He saved copies of every single issue of our school paper where my name was mentioned – be it an article where I was cited in passing or one where I appeared in the byline – he saved them all. He even kept my high school poems which were so baduy I cringe just remembering how awful the quality of my writing was.

He cried when I passed the CPA Board Exams. I told him then that my grades weren’t that impressive. It did not matter though, he was still ecstatic.

It has been five years since he died, and this is the first time that I am writing about him.

I miss him.

Now that I am starting my own family, the totality and magnitude of all that my father had given and given up for us dawned on me. And I am scared that I won’t be able to measure up. I now have my own little boy who I hope to raise the same way we were raised. And I hope that, just like my parents moved heaven and earth to provide the best for us, I and the husband* would also be able to do the same for Qube and our future kids.