Look at that.
They grow up too fast.
I took the photo above at 2:02 p.m. last Saturday (October 6). There was no electricity in our neighborhood, Jeff was out to replenish our food supply and the children and I were playing Bingo to while away the time.
These days — plagued with so much paperworks to finish mostly due to my graduate degree obligations — I have been looking back to the times when I was single, younger and carefree. In those days, I would pack my bag on Saturday and take long bus rides from Cebu City to Liloan, Santander then a fastcraft to Sibulan in Negros Oriental. From Sibulan, I take an easy ride (the term they use in that part of the Visayas for a multi-cab ride) to Dumaguete. I usually get myself a pension house at the city center or the Boulevard area and spend the day meeting my friends. I wake up early on a Sunday for a quick stroll at the Boulevard then I usually take the earliest fast craft from Negros to Cebu then the long bus ride again to Cebu City. I am usually back in the city by 2 p.m. to report to work.
I still live a fast-paced life but compared to the zoom days of my early 20s, I have lull days in between now that I am in my early 30s. I usually spend it at home — a small house that sits on a 69-square-meter lot in Liloan which I acquired when I was 25 years old — with my children and my husband. Lull days are about cooking for them, doing homeworks, sleeping in and lying on the couch the whole night binge-watching on CSI episodes on Netflix.
My most favorite activity during these lull days though is observing my children play. It is not a relaxing hobby. I often serve the role of a bouncer; breaking up fights and comforting crying mutants. On good hours, we sing and dance and read stories. We also cook and eat breakfast and then repeat this routine for lunch and dinner.
Lull days are “often” free of professional obligations. I placed often in quotation marks because sometimes during those lull days, I get inspiration to write features, blog entries, reflections and project proposals. This is the reason why I was able to write this: I’ve been home for three straight days mostly cooking, playing and reading with the kids, and writing essays for my school’s discussion forums.
I am hesitant about calling myself a stay-at-home mother because that is not me. I am also NOT a working mother because I do not have a traditional eight-to-five job that gives me a monthly salary and benefits. I usually say I am a full-time, strike-anywhere journalist/writer with a hobby of getting sentimental every time I see my children’s baby pictures.
The twins — Nicholas and Antoinette — are five years old now and in Kindergarten 2. JJ just turned three years old last month and is in the same class as the four-year-old kids. They are growing so fast with English and
Sinugbuanong Binisaya vocabularies as expansive as the Milky Way Galaxy.
In days and weeks when I am not with them, I come home to three kids who are singing new songs, saying weird expressions and reading new books. This is why it is a conscious decision from my end to take a pause in between projects and travels to spend time with them.
I feel that the most crucial part of motherhood — or parenthood in general — is to be able to spend time with our children as much as possible. To spend solo dates with them so they get to open up and talk to us about anything under the sun and moon. On Friday night, Nicholas and I watched Parent Trap on Netflix and he giggled the whole night. When the movie ended, he told me: “You are so cool Mommy. Let’s do this again.”
That’s my five years old. My first firstborn.
I do not care much about being able to send our children in the school with the best reputation of producing the brightest students. I am looking and focusing at raising children who are not entitled and disrespectful.
I do not have a crystal ball that will tell me how they turn out 10, 20 years down the road.
But I am positive that with children who knows how to say…
Excuse me.
Thank you.
I’m sorry.
May I please…
… we are following the path of humility, empathy and respectfulness; values that children these days need to possess.
