Embracing Motherhood With Love

I watched Kris.tv this morning, one of those rare times that I get to sit in front of the television for an early morning show. I am glad I did because I liked her guests, Janice de Belen and her kids with ex-hubby John Estrada. It was a thrill to watch them, three lovely girls and her bunso, a John Estrada look-alike but he has a charm of his own. We all know that Janice de  Belen has gone through so much in life but watching her and her lovely kids during the interview,  you would surmise that she is a very strong woman and I admire her for that. She said that it was only last year that she found herself again without her kids knowing that she cries when they are asleep. She cooks and it is so obvious that she is so proud of her kids.

Motherhood! What a sweet word and yet it entails a lot of responsibilities  but still you embrace it with love. Time and again, I’ve shared some blogs on being a mother but now I relish the thought of being a grandma ….in less than two months. It is quite exciting to see your kids finally having one of their own. How you brought them up would reflect on how they will tackle the responsibilities of married life and all.  I am also looking forward to having baby Nate to play with, and to pamper (just a little, maybe).

“It takes a Mother’s love to make a house a home, a place to be remembered, no matter where we roam.”  That’s a quote from Helen Steiner Rice.

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A Prayer For Nathaniel Owen

It is always a welcome thing to see my daughter  and son-in-law during weekends. The few hours that we spend together more than make up for the days that we get in touch just through texts and phone calls. We had an early dinner or shall we call late “merienda”, I prepared spaghetti while Nissa made Panini bread with cheese.  When we are on the dining table, the topic seems to veer on food.  Kev says he hasn’t tasted nor seen a zucchini yet so he suggested to Nissa that it would be their first find on their next trip to the grocery store.  I told them we could try to plant them outside just like what we do with squash or pumpkins. Zucchini belongs to the family of squash, right?  I love zucchini and I always buy some when I chance upon them fresh from the market.

Nissa showed me the much-awaited  sonogram of our baby. At 28 weeks and a few days,  it is so exciting to see him inside Nissa’s womb and our conversation goes this way:

“He has your nose”, I told Obet  (my son-in-law) and he smiled.

“Thank God for that”, Nissa said adding “he has my lips”.

There is this standing  joke in the family that is always retold  with family members and close friends. Nissa was  a premature baby  because I got complications when I was pregnant with her. She was only eight months when my OB-Gynecologist induced her birth and at 3.9  pounds,  she was left at the hospital for about a month before we were able to take her home.  There was this oxygen attached to her and hubby said, “ang tangos ng ilong niya” meaning her nose  was not “pango” or flat as we say in Tagalog. It turned out that it was just the taped nasal cannula to make her breathe.

And I said, “maybe that’s the reason why medyo flat ilong mo”  and we all laughed.

Anyway, it is really so exciting to see baby  Nathaniel Owen and by God’s grace, we will welcome him to the world in two months. Nissa wants to call him Nate. Nice name, I said but we all laughed when we realized that his initials would be N.O.A.I. So how do you pronounce that? Nissa forgot to bring the DVD, we could have seen Nate move inside her womb. It is something more to look forward to, I just hope on their next visit, I would be able to see it.

I am praying hard everything would be okay when she gives birth in two months. We are all excited to see Nathaniel Owen.

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Just Another Lovely Weekend

Take that as something I look forward to because tonight my daughter and son-in-law are coming for an overnight stay. I really miss those days when Nissa and I used to spend Friday nights watching our favorite movies on DVD. Never mind if we are still awake at 2am, the giggles, the laughter and sometimes the tears while watching a sentimental story more than make up for the eye bags  and headaches the following day. It’s the togetherness that counts, right?  I seldom see her now, once or twice a month is how frequent our meeting gets but it is always something I treasure and look forward to. Text messages and phone calls are part of our daily routine though. Sometimes, just out of the blue, she would text and say “I miss you so much Ma, I love you very much” and my heart melts because I miss her too. She’s been married for more than seven months now and come November, before their first wedding anniversary, I am hoping to see my first grandchild. Gosh, does that makes me old? Who cares about the numbers beside your name anyway?

She said that she brought her last ultrasound so I could see her baby, the much-awaited figure in our lives now. A friend even suggested that if it turns out to be a girl, we should have our pictures taken, four generations in one frame – mom, me, Nissa and her baby.  How I wish Mom would still be strong enough to see her grow up.  Don’t get me wrong, whether it’ll be a boy or a girl, he/she would be very much welcome. Maybe, at five months, we’ll be able to see if Nissa will have to prepare something blue or something in a shade of pink.  Who knows, but if you ask me, I’d rather it be a surprise, the sex of the baby I mean, but technology nowadays robs us of some of those lovely surprises because every month, there is a scheduled ultrasound. I am praying that her pregnancy would be smooth and she’ll have an easy delivery. I remember my ordeal when I gave birth to her because she was a premature baby. I had pre-eclampsia on my seventh month and had to stay at the hospital until the doctor decided that it was okay to give birth at eight months, an induced birth actually because my blood pressure was too high, a little  risky  for mother and child.

There is something so special, so endearing and so poignant about a mother and child relationship. The wonder of having those tiny hands curl up in yours and those lopsided grins even when your baby is asleep.  The many firsts that you’ll witness in your baby’s young life – the first school day, when she goes home crying because she misses you, the first time she could write her name and proudly shows you how it’s done, the first heartaches of teenage crushes. I could go on and on but those times are well-remembered with joy and fondness. Nissa and I have a different kind of sharing now and it’s all about our new baby.

It’s another lovely weekend, my day is complete when my kids are around. And I remember what Sophia Loren once said,  “When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts.  A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.”

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Stirrings of First Love?

Great! The lovely story is slowly unfolding. And I am still talking about Dahil Sa Pag-ibig on its fifth episode. Finally, the main characters Piolo Pascual and Cristine Reyes are now introduced into the picture as grown-ups Jasmin and Alfred.  I have a friend who says she’s so “kilig” watching it.  I really must be hooked too, blogging about it again.

So how do you ease the pain of an unrequited first love? How do you move on when you know that deep in your heart, someone matters a lot?  Can you  let go that easily?  It makes me remember the teenage years, the times when  you cried yourself to sleep because you were hurting. But you grow up eventually, all the hurts and the pain become  part of the growing-up years. And the experience makes you strong.  You reminisce and smile a little because you remember and you can relate 🙂

 

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Dahil Sa Pag-ibig

These teleseryes sure have their way of keeping you awake at night. I’ve always said time and again that I am not much into watching television. Lately though,  I have to wait for my son to leave for work late at night  so apart from waiting for him to wake up at 10pm, I  either read, update my blog or simply  get a glimpse of what  keeps mom busy.  She is so fond of watching teleseryes. I tried watching one or two a few months ago but I must admit, I only get to see one or two episodes and that’s it for me. And since she keeps me company watching the Impeachment trial from Monday to Thursday, I have to return the favor staying by her side to watch just that…teleseryes. 

Simply put, a teleserye  means television series that you have to watch everyday on primetime .  There goes my evening awaiting the next episode of Dahil Sa Pag-ibig. It’s been aired for only three nights yet the beautiful story is just beginning to unfold.  I love how the storyline  revolves around the religious aspects – faith, redemption, love, family and greediness coupled with revenge. A high-end drama typical of some Filipino households, the girl marrying a poor man and the latter ridiculed and insulted by the girl’s rich father. I wouldn’t know where this would go in the next few days it’ll be aired but one thing I like is the powerhouse cast of  Piolo  Pascual (the best  actor I think when it comes to drama), Jericho Rosales (a favorite, I have blogged about him a couple of times), Cristina Reyes, Christopher de Leon, Ronaldo Valdez, Sandy Andolong, Tetchie Agbayani, Rafael Rosell, Denise Laurel, Freddie Webb, Rey ‘PJ’ Abellana, Melissa Mendez, Malou Crisologo among others.

I was wondering who portrayed the child Alfred, a wonderful look-alike of Piolo Pascual and the child could act, same with the young Jasmin. I just wish they were given a longer exposure because both of them were so good. Last night, the teenagers Jasmin and Alfred were already introduced into the episode.

Filipinos love drama, certainly an escape from the many problems that beset not only the country as a whole but those encountered by families as well. And this penchant for teleseryes is one sure way of being entertained.  Forget about the stressing Impeachment trial (I still do watch it anyway) and let’s see where Dahil sa Pag-ibig takes us in the next few days or months for that matter.

By the way, the title loosely translated means “because of love”.

(the pictures uploaded here in this blog are not mine, they were just culled from the net)

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Learning To Know What You Really Mean

When you say:
Can’t you do that for once?
you might actually mean:
– I am tired of your irresponsibility
– I resent telling you things
– I don’t like myself for having to remind you.

When you say:
You don’t really care that much, do you?
you might actually mean:
– it hurts that you care so little
– please care more!
– it hurts me that we communicate like strangers
– I am waiting for you to woo me again
   to love me,
   for me to be special to you.

Whey you say:
I am so tired of life!
you might actually mean:
– our life has lost its real intensity
– please do something!
– we have become what we did not want to become
– I don’t want to try to convince you any more
   that our life centres too much around working,
   eating and TV.

When you say:
I can’t stand you when you’re like that!
you might actually mean:
– I feel threatened by you
– can’t you see that I lack all self-respect
   and all sense of self-worth
– I just don’t know how to answer you
– I don’t like myself when you bring the worst
   out in me
– please don’t play that role
   because I can see right through it.

When you say:
You always/never do that!
you might actually mean:
– I am frustrated that neither of us
   can really listen to the other
– your coolness bothers me
– please react
   I am as aggressive as I can be
– I feel ignored and want to communicate with you.

I know that we use words to hide, to hit, to run away:
words are smoke-screens and security-builders;
words are bait to be swallowed
   by the unsuspecting;
words are arm-twisters and weakening agents;
words are shots, barbs and hooks;
words are mirrors of the soul;
words are cries for help;
words are words and so much more.

Because I want to know you,
and to communicate with you,
I will be open to what lies beyond your words.

– lifted from the book A Growing Love (Meditations
on Marriage and Commitment) by Ulrich Schaffer

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Two Days To Go Before Purple Day

My daughter’s friends call it Purple Day, referring of course to her  wedding this coming Sunday. Such a hectic and busy week for all of us except perhaps hubby who is so cool about it all. Or maybe, he just won’t like to think that in two days, his unica hija will change her name from Ariston to Isidro.

I love weddings, I love seeing people in love tie the knot in Holy Matrimony , being blessed by it and blessed by God. It’s kind of different though when it is your own daughter who is getting married. I am happy for her but just like most moms who still think of their daughter as their baby, I go crazy reminding her of this and that and constantly checking what has been done and what needs to be done. I am sure I am not alone in this,  “hello there pretty moms, am I right”?

Some friends assured me it’s pretty normal. “Oh, is it?”  Or maybe it is just what my adopted son calls “separation anxiety”. I planned of making a blog, right? But as always is the case, I can’t organize my thoughts  although a lot of things are playing in my head.  I want to write about those days when she was still a baby, her first day in school, her first crush, a neighbor who died when she  was in college and how she cried that her Kuya Junjun was no longer around. I want to write about the things we share before going to bed and our love for the written word. I want to write about how I jumped with joy when one of her UST professors called me up at home eight years ago telling me that she would graduate as Magna Cum Laude.  I want to write about how happy we were together when she was promoted as Assistant Manager at her present work. I want to write about the silly grin on our faces every time  we find some good books in our favorite jaunts.

Oh well, a mother could only smile at these thoughts but I promised myself I won’t cry. I wish her all the luck and pray continuously  that she would start married life like I dreamed it ought to be for her – lots of happiness and blessings and a loving hubby to speak of.

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True Love

We prayed the rosary early today. It’s a common ritual for the family that when All Saints and All Souls Day come, we prepare something for our dead relatives and make an offering at the altar and recite the rosary just for the intention of praying for their souls and all souls in purgatory.  And as usual it’s pancit bihon and bibingka. Since Mom will be going home soon, she told me that she will lead the rosary prayers in our dialect which is Pangasinan. I am not really well-versed with the translated version so she prays in Pangasinan , hubby answers in Pangasinan too while Josef and I pray in English. So you could just imagine that sometimes, mom gets lost because of it.

Anyway, that isn’t why I am writing this blog. I want to capture Mom’s mood right after we had our afternoon snack and she was humming an unfamiliar tune in our dialect. Then she asked me  if I want to listen to it so I just nodded. With a smile on her face, she got a small typewritten piece of paper inserted in her  Pangasinan prayer-book and showed it to me before she started singing. I was amazed when she told me that Dad wrote it for her decades ago. There was no title except these words: “This song is heartily dedicated to my one and only love.”   I had goosebumps reading it and thought of Dad and everything that I remember about him when he was alive.  I knew that he used to compose songs and play them later on the guitar but this was the first time that Mom showed these lines to me. I could not completely decipher the meaning of every word but the thought was all about true love.  I am sharing it here so I could go back to it and will try to translate  it  in English when I have time. It was written in five stanzas, four lines each.

                                    1. Say sipan kod sica

                                        Talimaey katooran

                                        Say datngen kon irap caermenan

                                       Sicay papel na liknaan

                                 2. Siglaot na malet tan arowan

                                      Solo Patey so mamocnal

                                      Say aroc tan say magter con laman

                                     Signot mon kien legay bilay

                               3. Sasalien ililibang libang

                                    So nonot cod sican naynay

                                   Adarom laloc ya nanonotan

                                  Diad isip agnabural.

                            4. Gala pani ta punas moy ermen

                                 Ed singim iran pacatempey

                               Tano onia permi lilicnaen

                              Pilit ya datnen koy patey

                        5. Bagta licnay agnalambenan

                            Dicta cay puson lingkuran

                            Labien coni naandi yan bilay

                          Aleg labat lan manlamang.

Back when I was in grade school, I used to see letters written in lines and curves and I was curious how they can even understand each other writing that way. I asked mom about it and she said it was in Steno. I learned later that Stenography is a course in short and swift writing  by using symbols to shorten the words. That early curiosity lead me to take up two semesters of secretarial course before moving on to get my degree in Economics. Yes, it was because of the Steno that I enrolled in it. It was not a piece of cake, it was harder than I thought.

Looking back, I remember the times when Dad was already weak due to dialysis treatment. He still found time to share stories on what life was  after World War II, the struggles he had to undergo to make both ends meet, so to speak.  I never saw them quarrel infront of us, their children.  If there is one thing that I could say proudly, Mom is lucky to have been loved by a man like Dad. And I am sure it was true love.

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Impulse, Intuition and Fidelity

I posted these three questions at our AFCC Tambayan group: Do you give in to impulses? Do you act on intuition? What is your take on fidelity?

Just  watched another episode on KrisTv  early this morning and she had Lucy Torres (my favorite), Anne Curtis, Vicky Belo and the director of the much-talked about movie No Other Woman. It was a lively discussion on fidelity  and being true, loyal and honest to the person you are in relationship with.  And I am reminded of the things that people do on impulse in the name of love, so to speak.  A news report a few days ago said that a jealous wife shot her husband and his paramour when she caught them together inside a mall. Crazy, isn’t it but sometimes when we act irrationally, that’s what happens.

Impulse is defined as “the influence of a particular feeling or mental state or a sudden , involuntary inclination prompting to action.  It is also a instinctual urge  and a compelling drive towards something that induces motion.” Loosely defined, it’s that act by which there is no particular thought involved, never weighing things before acting on them. And an impulse, to most of us, usually connotes something destructive but not all impulses are like that, right? I must admit I am quite impulsive when it comes to buying things that I don’t readily need. I am quite impulsive when I visit bookstores and  buy books right there and then. I am quite impulsive when sometimes, hubby and I decide to eat in a place where extra budget is required. The reward of course is a big smile on your face once you realized that you’ve done something that made you happy.   Sometimes, in a fit of anger, you do things that you regret later, you utter words that hurt other people – you act on impulse, that’s what.

Is it true that women are more intuitive than men? It’s pure intuition to know something without prior knowledge or reason. It’s an immediate insight, and there is an immediate apprehension by sense.  I remember Anne saying that when there is something wrong in a relationship, you get to know and feel it even before it stares at you right in the face. Right, even sometimes a meaningless text (to your husband) makes you a little apprehensive, where is this going to. I was laughing out loud when Lucy shared that she actually forwarded a text to  the girl texting Richard and pretended that it was his new number. How clever….hahaha! You can imagine the rest, next text would be right to Lucy’s cellphone.

Ah fidelity, my artist friend at our Tambayan page said that he is loyal and he loves his wife (that’s written in big, bold letters) and that giving in to temptation is not his kind of thing. Loyalty is one thing we do expect from our friends, children and especially from our husband/wife.  Once trust is broken, it would really be difficult to bring it back.

I made this unconsciously long  again. They are just plain observations on impulse, fidelity and intuition. So I go back to my earlier questions.

Do you give in to impulses?

Do you act on intuition?

What’s your take on fidelity?

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Sunday For Family

How she has grown! The last time I saw her was about seven months ago when my daughter, his boyfriend and I went home to our place in the province to visit them. They came over this morning, my younger brother, sis-in-law, my seven-year old niece and Mom. It was  just a lightning visit, they went back home a while ago but Mom was left behind with us.

Her name is Mae but we fondly call her Bobic. Back in December when we were at their place, she told her cousin (my daughter) that she’ll start saving for her Ate Nissa’s wedding. We had a good laugh at that  but she was serious when she  said, “It’s my gift to Ate Nissa.”  She’s quite matured for her age and when she speaks, she sounds like a twenty year old.  Since they came here to have her measurements taken for her gown, I asked her what happened to the coin bank  we gave her last December and she said that it’s almost full.  Her mom said,“She’s  filling it with assorted coins and small paper bills which she ask daily from her Papa.”  I jokingly asked her, “will you still give it to Ate Nissa?”. She just nodded and smiled at me.

Nissa wants her to be the little bride during the wedding. We were laughing out loud when she innocently asked, “Ano bang ginagawa ng little bride Ate?”  So we told her she’ll be the bride’s little assistant and she’ll be wearing a similar gown like that  of the bride. She is excited and gamely told us that she’ll be back before the wedding. There’s no dull moment when she is around.

I remember the first time she came into our lives, a mere one week old baby. Being the youngest in the family, our attention was focused on her. My brother and his wife officially adopted her and it took them a year to have all the legal papers in order.  You might ask if there is a difference between a blood relation and an adopted member of the family, there’s nothing really because she is family to all of us. When you love a person because she is worth-loving and when you take care of her because you want her to grow up lovable and loving  too, you won’t even think of whether  she is legally adopted or not. Everything is the same. Someday maybe, when she is old enough to understand, she’ll learn and will get to know all about it. All the love that we could give to a beautiful and talented niece is hers, no questions asked, no compromise about it, she is loved for what she is.

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