The other side of the coin

After all the sweet joys I have divulged in here about having a child, let me express wickedly the other side of the story. You know your life has turned topsy-turvy when:

> The flow of your shower sounds like the baby’s cry; you dry up yourself quickly even if the shampoo is still sticking in your hair. Only to find out the baby is sleeping tight.
> Instead of buying a pack of beer or bottles of wine, your shopping bag is loaded with diapers, formula and baby cereals.
> You believe breast pumps are the most miraculous invention man has ever created.
> You vacuum your floor more than twice a day instead of twice a week.
> Your undergarments drawer is mixed up with tiny slippers, tiny socks and all things tiny!
> You spend hundreds of hours washing baby bottles instead of polishing your nails and plucking your eyebrows.
> Next to your champagne glass is a baby bottle. And the tiny person sitting next to you is more interested in the champagne than his bottle.
> You wake up in the middle of the night NOT to do labing-labing with your partner but to sing lullabies.
> You spend a lot of time on your knees cleaning up leftovers thrown on the floor, on the sofa and coffee table.
> Instead of ironing your clothes, you iron some teeny-weeny clothes.
> He’s got clothes that could fill up a mall, while you can’t remember when was the last time you bought yourself a garment.
> The trunk of your car is overloaded with stroller, heater and toys every time you travel.
> When you buy shoes, you hesitate buying the ones with flirty hills or the runners for chasing tiny legs. Eventually you choose the ones which you think qualify for marathon.
> During a candle light dinner, you partner whispers sweet nothings and you give in a puzzled-alarmed look and you say “do you think the baby is asleep?”
> Every day you keep on looking for your remote control and phones.
> Some time in this new life, your favorite dvd finds itself in the toilet bowl.
> You go to the loo for an urgent call of nature, then you realize the toilet paper is gone. You search every corner of the house and find the bloody thing lying on the kitchen floor like a red carpet rolled over.
> Instead of watching Lord of the Rings, you end up watching ducks, pigs, cows and frogs circus. It’s the nth time you’ve seen it, yet the little person next to you laughs as if it’s all something new.
> All of a sudden your favorite song is "Baa, baa, black sheep". You sing it a million times.
> You tiptoe in the house, take a cozy blanket with popcorn in hand ready for your favorite show and as soon your bottom landed on the sofa, there’s a cow saying mooh, mooh, or a duck going quack, quack, or worst yet a little red fella proclaiming “bonjour, c’est moi Oui Oui” all buried under the cushions and pillows.
> Your interior design has changed quite dramatically with decors gaining levels up just so the little person can’t reach them.
> Your wallpaper and screensaver are all images of the little person.
> Talking about someone’s dirt makes you puke, and yet half of your daily routine comprises of cleaning someone’s bottom and you even proclaim ecstatically “what a beautiful caca!” every time you change him.
> You hate seeing someone digging their fingers inside their noses, and yet you are so eager to pick the snot of your little person.
> Hearing bodily sounds emitting gases is your worst nightmare and yet interestingly you laugh hilariously when your little person does thunderous farts and burps.
> Many of your books have lost their pages, others chipped off, you begin to wonder if rats have invaded your house.
> Your electric outlets are suddenly wearing hats, others wearing scotch-tape masks.
> When you are convinced that your eye-bags were already there the day you were born, you know the little person has quite invaded your time for beauty sleeps.
> Your work-outs comprise of pushing a stroller, chasing a little person, running/crawling around with the little person on your back while you go "neigh, neigh, neigh".

Then you think loudly, “life will never be the same again!”

Is love enough?

Yesterday was David’s 13th month birthday. In the eyes of anyone, it was like any ordinary day. But for me it was a very special. As I watched David playing in the sandpit with other children, I realized how time passes by. I ponder how he came into our lives; how he gives us joy and fear we’ve never known before, how he has changed our lives completely and how he will always will.

There’s so much unexplainable joy and wonder in bringing a child into this world, but with it comes sacrifices, fear and even paranoia. I believe every born child is a perfect child. And David, well, a perfect gift, yet so painfully delicate and helplessly dependent. A little cold, a tiny discomfort or a fierce cry would send us parents to a panic, wondering how we could ease the pain, wishing it’s us suffering and not him.

Our love, unconditionally given will always serve as David’s strong foundation as he grows into his own person. But then, I doubt this might not be enough as the reality of a harsh world would eventually penetrate in. There are times, I think, we are tougher on him than necessary.

He is very, very, young, but as he slowly discovers that there are other children out there, there are other people and that he is not after all the centre of the world, he does struggle to understand. His face crumples into a hundred creases as he takes someone’s toy and the other child would shout at him: “C’est à moi ça!” (It’s mine!) Then if I explain it to him why the other kid is angry, he throws himself into a wild fit and shouts his lungs out.

He throws me strong, penetrating gazes, searching for some comfort when a friendly stranger tries to talk to him. Well, this is just a beginning for his social growth. And I cannot forever comfort him in my arms every time his uneasiness overcomes him. “I love you baba”, simply is not enough.

As David grows and tries to comprehend the world, dada and I are likewise struggling how we can make it easier for him. How can you explain in Davidian language that poking one’s fingers in electric outlets or eating earth is harmful and dangerous? An authoritative, high-pitched NO may work at times but does he really understand our simple explanation why he is not allowed to do certain things? How can you talk the baby-talk to a baby and get the satisfaction and assurances that indeed he understands them?

And I realize, this is just the beginning. I worry so much about petty things concerning David. I am becoming pathetic. And if I dare continue, dada will give up picking up my white hair, he'll just buy a dye for me instead! Well I hope it's dye not a razor! :-o
I have to pinch myself time to time to remind me that he is just growing and everything around him is part of the process. If I have to say no a million times over the same things, then perhaps I have to say it so. Pag matigas pa rin ang ulo, e di iiayakan ko na lang!

So I’ll try to resolve myself and go on with Davidian flow. One step at a time. I might stick a card on my PC screen that says: Live the moment and let the future worry itself! And if that doesn’t work, I will just have to call my mother and ask, “how on earth did you do it with seven stubborn kids?!”

Mama's rambling...

Mama blogs also in MP, you can read her GIRL'S NIGHT at this link: http://madpinoy.blog-city.com/

Our little Pope

This is dada’s original idea, I’m just putting them into concrete words ;-) Here it goes:

David walks like a pope (dada’s creative description). And it’s true. After months of walking with open arms as he tries to find his balance, David now walks with ten little fingers interlocking together clasp on his chest. Like he is praying or something. In our crooked mind, we jokingly tell the piglet, “are you praying not to fall David?” He looks always serious as he does this. Sometimes when he is holding his cup of water up as he goes around the house, dada describes him like “the pope is offering the holy water!” Bad parents! :-o

A solution to shyness

It took me until today to realize that David's shyness and awkwardness towards other people of all ages, sizes and shapes, may not be after all a product of his burgeoning development, but may be a natural, inherited trait.
We went to the playground today to enjoy Mr. Sun who decided he wants to show his face to David. Around 2 pm, there are not a lot of children in the playground since, I suppose, most of them are taking their siesta and it's school time. There were just a handful of them there today, playing on their own.
After a short play in the sandpit, (we were kicked out since the people encharge are adding more sand in the pit, the huge truck loading in fresh sand from who-knows-where), David led his way to the slides. I heard an elderly woman, I assume she was the grandma, telling her little charge, “look there's a little boy coming over, he looks like your age!” Few feet away from them, David came to an abrupt halt, looked at the old woman, looked at the boy, and then quickly turned around and walked hastily towards me, burying his face in between my knees. A sign of timidity.
It hit me hard today on the way home while contemplating on his reaction towards the grandma and her little boy, I suddenly remember my mother (mamang) saying frequently to other people: "she is a shy girl". The girl being me. Myself. David's mother!
Apparently, mamang, being the watchful mother to her flock, realized at my early years on earth, I was a timid little girl. While my two elder brothers were boisterous, adventure-seekers and rowdy, I was the quite, happy-to-be-alone child. Although, I must say, I didn’t miss on anything that my brothers had explored-and-destroyed. I was always tagging along! But then being with the big brothers and with other people are two different social worlds.
To overcome such ferocious shyness, mamang did everything for me. Every school, social, religious and communal activities happening in our neighbourhood, I was there. I even participated in Flores de Mayo, beauty contests, girl’s scout activities and all.
I hardly can remember all of these but I got plenty of photos. I still have photos of me dressed in different costumes dancing on the stage of our school during commencement rites. I even have photos dressed in Wonder Woman, or dancing in tights and leotards to the tune of the inevitable “Flashdance’s What a feeling”, or on sweats and shorts for Olivia Newton John’s Let’s Get Physical! Mamang, realized I guess, that if I can’t sing then at least, I should learn when to coordinate and rhythmize the right and left steps of my feet while wiggling my bottom and the rest of my extremities! And since it was all her ideas, she was always volunteering, at the end of the school year, to teach me and my friends numbers to be presented during the graduation rites. I’ll tell you even my brothers who have two left feet were wooed into doing these stunts. And we were always like on the middle or front: in plain view. That for my mamang, bless her wonderful heart, was her way of overcoming my shyness. I’m quite sure she never heard about the “feel the fear and do it anyway” self-help book, but she sure was on the right track on how to overcome one’s limitations and fears. And I was just around 7.
During my elementary, high school and college life, every activity that involved public speaking and social interactions with strangers, was I guess, almost always a painful process of overcoming that nagging fear, no coin inside your socks would help. But each occasion was never a traumatic experience for me. I just knew that when I couldn’t do it, I had to say so. And no one actually had forced me to do otherwise.
I haven’t got the slightest idea where did I get this shyness; my family is a cocktail of shameless people. (opps sori guys! lol!!) But it sure does itch my sides thinking that our little one may have inherited this unpopular part of mine!
I told dadi about this and well, he didn’t buy it at first. I had an impression he thinks it was one of my never-ending paranoia about raising a child. Then for the past few days, for some reason, he is starting to think I may be right. And he actually has one really simple solution to this and that is, bring David to the Philippines.
Dadi, did you say, BRING David to my country? Like, you know, taking the airplane, flying, and then enjoy, the sun, sand and family?
Now, we are talking! Philippines is a country never lacking of social interactions. In fact, I think, people who are extremely shy and are having innate social difficulty interacting with other people should go there. It is a therapeutic archipelago inhabited with brown people wearing smiles on their faces, who are just more than willing to make friends. And the smiles are for free. So for David, this might be a good idea and for mama, ha, ha, ha, an excellent excuse to hang out with the shameless family. I am not complaining...

David's expanding vocabulary

David's dictionary is indeed expanding, but it is a dictionary he, I and few people like his dada and lola, can use. His got the word out, or sort of out! But it means a lot of things like, going out, light and any sort of things that hang on walls. You'll know what he means because he points at them. So naturally when he says "out" and he points at the door or window, it means he wants to go out. If he points at the light, then he means the light, either it's on or off. Art is something he understands as he points at painting or any artisty decors!
You ask him to do the lion sound and he does an enormous growling, guttural sound. When he sees lion on TV, or sees it on picture books, he imitates the lion sound and he is rather good at it. My throat hurts when I do the same!
He knows socks, and I am not surprised. Everytime these two tiny things are attached to his equally tiny feet, he removes them and I constantly remind him "do not take off your socks, David!" When he wakes up after a nap, sans socks, I ask him where they are and he goes looking for them, buried under all his stuffed toys. Once he finds them, he gives them to me, delivery with a wicked smile glued on his moon face.
Oucha is water. Da or cha is anything and everything. He understands most of what I said observing the way he reacts and the way he looks at me. If he doesn't understand or still trying to understand he gives a fierce concentration look, with brows wrinkling in the process. He is one expressive piglet! But as he gets older, his dada and I realize, our piglet has a serious almost painfully nasty look. And he is so expressive, you can almost read him like an open book!

Happy, smiley butt! This was taken when David pissed on his dada's dvds! Ohh that's really nasty!

Marking his territory

Last sunday, the three of us really had a lazy afternoon after we spent the morning shopping for our week's needs. David fell asleep long, like three, maybe four hours on his poussette, parked at the entrance. We planned to visit the evolution museum just a walk away from our place, but David woke up around 3, had to eat his lunch that could take another an hour or so. By the time we would be ready to move, the museum will be announcing its closing time. So we decided to stay home.
On this afternoon, David did his usual stinky business and had to be changed quickly. I don't know if it's only him or other toddlers do the same too, but David really hates being dressed up or undressed down. He wiggles, kicks, flutters and twaddles a lot. You need to be really quick to change him. We were watching the dvd series Alias so, I changed him in front of the télé. As soon as his butt was free, he rolled over and sat up in a split of a second, my jaw just went hanging! I couldn't say anything as he started crawling away from me, butt-naked.
It looked hilarious seeing him diaper-less, so I filmed him with our digicam. As soon as I pressed the on button, I heard dadi screaming "nooo, noooo!" Then I realized the piglet has peed on his dadi's dvds, looking like a puppy marking his territory.

A full time job!

Mama's full time job! Today David has decided he won't do his siesta at the good hours of the afternoon. Bottles of milk are piling up in the sink, his clothes screaming to be ironed are still hanging on the clothesline, tons of garbage needing immediate disposals, I have heaps of numbers needing to be dialled as my friends are starting to abandon me huh huh huh due to calls left unanswered for days, his food needing to be prepared and cooked, his toys and books scattered all over the sala and bedroom, and David not satisfied to be on his own, is tagging my pants down. Here in this photo, I gave him a strawberry fruit just so he has time to kill (this is his first time to taste the fruit) and me attacking the biberons (utmost priority). Do I need to specify that while washing the biberons, I have to sing, tell stories at the peak of my voice just to outtop the gushing sound of the faucet, make funny faces, create crazy sounds and wiggle some parts of my body just so David would stop to grumble? When I turned around, the piglet is in himself a complete mess, another cleaning to do, not to mention pans, detergents, napkins et. al. have taken refuged on the kitchen floor as typhoon David passes by. (He has finally found the logic that inorder to open the cabinet doors he needs to back up a little bit so he won't block them, ugh!) And then with his strawberry-soaked hands, he has left stains everywhere!!! I want to be paid, it's not fair!

PS. Thank God, there is blog, at least I can scream! Da huwasan lagi!

Ang baktin super enjoy sa iyang chocolate cake. 

Doing the "luge" in the French Alpes. 

Trip, trip, trip

Almost one week has passed since we arrived back in Paris. It was such a short break, but we spent it sans dull moment! I guess that's the thing with short vacation, you try to make the most of it ;-)

Day 1 (errr night 1) : We left Paris to Chamonix, right after dadi's work, around 7:30 pm. It was a smooth drive for David since he was just sleeping all the way through. But it wasn't definitely a good start for us when dadi was caught by the gendarmerie overspeeding! At night it's hard to see who's lurking beside the autoroute in addition to thousands of camions. We didn't see the radar at all. It was only when a police car pulled us over that we realized "merde" we are overspeeding! They made us followed their car on their way to the gendarme's office. Dadi was just cool, to my suprised! He told me there was no need to get angry, pissed or whatever! He made a mistake and that's it period! So he paid 45 euros and deducted one point from his license for an overspeed of 20 kms per hour! Ouch! The police told him he was lucky the law has changed. If we had done the offense a month ago, we would have paid 95 euros and that's definitely a blow to one's pocket.
Anyway, as we went back to the autoroute, I told dadi to be careful this time. The autoroute in the South is apparently heavily checked. Now this is the funny, ironic part. Dadi said to me: "There's the saying that bad luck strikes only once". I replied: "Have you heard of the maxim "In every rule, there's an exemption?". Then there quelques minutes plus tard, we got flashed! It was actually scarier than I thought because in the pitch dark of the mountain road, there's the sudden white flash of light. Dadi said what was that? I answered: we got flashed! And we duetted: "merde!" I was thinking, I hope this is not a bad omen for our vacation. Dadi was ever careful with his driving, I was afraid his eyes were more fixed on the speed meter than on the road.
The night's event receded back to the deepest pits of our minds as we started the holiday with David on the snow. He was really enjoying it. We had a mild weather so it was lovely. During the 5-day break, David has changed a lot. He said several sounds like dadi, outta, eeyahhh, yahhh and more of his growling "lion" sound. Everytime I asked him, "how old are you David?", he pointed out his index finger and said: "chhaa", then clapped his hands wildly! He showed us things by pointing them with his tiny finger. He gained weight, got colors in his cheeks, and was happy all the time. He was eating food in the restaurant and was even stealing some from our plate. It was fascinating. This is a kid who loves the outdoors or vacation lol!
Anyway, we've done lots of luge for David. Spent one day of ski then went to Italy and Switzerland. The day after our ski, we decided to cross-border. So David had breakfast in France, lunch in Italy, an afternoon snack in Switzerland and dinner back to France. It may sound like a mad driving having covered three countries in one day, but it didn't feel that way. It was relaxing. Well, maybe tiring for dadi who was on the steering wheel all the time. But he was happy. Travelling and driving are two things he likes most. I wonder how he manages himself sitting in the office 5 days a week!
Back to Paris and back to normalities and routine. It took David a while to adjust to his home, his room and his toys. For two nights he was waking up in the middle of the night and ended up sleeping with us.
However, it's spring time, the birds are chirping, flowers and trees blooming and most important of all, the sun is shining. This means plenty of outdoors for David. The other day, we went to the playground and I made him play in the sandpit. It was his first time and you could see his curiousity with the sand. He was holding it with both hands and let the grains drop off in between his fingers. He did it over and over, turning towards me time to time, laughing, his eyes glistening with wonderment. He was spellbound by it all. Just few days before he was playing in the snow and now, under the nice warmth of the sun in the sandpit. How fascinating to see things in the eyes of a child. It is refreshing and I practically saw things for the first time and felt that even the sand I took for granted all the time could actually look new and refreshing.