My God, I’m feeling so trapped na talaga ha. This, like, has never happened to us before – never! Sheeet, we really have to do something about this.
Oh, shut up. Just because our husband sold his car and has been using ours -– a lot -- it doesn’t mean we’re “trapped.” And besides, it’s only temporary -- until he decides what he wants.
Duh?! When you’re at home and you look at an empty garage, doesn’t it, like, make you kaba? What if an emergency with the baby comes up na lang bigla? How will you get out of the village kaya ‘no?
‘Sus! We can walk to the gate and get a ride there.
There’s, like, no way you’re going to make me lakad two and half kilometers. You know how I don’t like to get pawis. As if!
We can take a tricycle.
Nyahahah! Yeah, right – like, do you even remember the last time we made sakay a tricycle? Or a jeepney? Or a bus?
Oh, some time in the early nineties. I think. But we take taxis to traverse the two blocks from the office to Megamall a lot.
Oh, see -- I rest my case na talaga.
Stop being such a whiner, will you? We’re intelligent -- how complicated could it be to take public transportation? Millions of people do it everyday.
Ah, but the kamasahan weren’t raised spoiled brats like we were. Admit it – we’re weak. We go into temporary dyslexia when we have to read the karatula’s on the sides of jeepneys. If Mel is dawdling about buying a new car, then WE should buy a new car na now. As in, I want a car na now – an in now! Now na! Now! Now!
If our husband won’t beat you up, I will.
Sige, I’ll shut up na if you can figure out how to get from here to, say Cavite, without taking a car or a cab .
Hmmm . . . So, you think the kids would like a Honda Civic?
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Darn. I was hoping I had ten years before I started answering questions like this. “Aaah . . . ask your father.” Good one. Mel could probably make up a more interesting explanation anyway.
“So why is Kris crying? Is she hurt?” As Carlo doesn’t speak Tagalog very well, he couldn’t catch most of the explanation in the vernacular.
Ok, no more news programs for my kids until they reach puberty. “Aaah . . . she met an accident, I think.”
I was up in our attic (sa totoo lang, bodega) the other day trying to look for some of my sons’ old baby clothes, when I came across a tattered old bag I kept to remind me of something very important.
About three years ago, I was driving west along Marcos Highway. If you don’t know, Marcos Highway is notorious for the nastiest, most reckless jeepney drivers in the Metro. Our parish priest claims that these drivers probably have a better place in heaven over him as they can bring out more prayers from their passengers in a 5-minute drive than he could ever get out of his parishioners in an hour-long mass.
Where was I? Oh, the bag. I’m getting there.
Like I said, I was driving west along Marcos Highway three years ago. As usual, I was on the left-most lane, as the three other lanes were clogged with jeepneys zigzagging along. At the intersection near the Sta. Lucia Mall, an idiot of a jeepney driver stopped in the middle of the highway to drop off his passengers – a group of giggling teenage girls whose thoughts ran far from the likelihood that they could be road kill any moment.
It was one of those what-the-**bleep**-just-happened moments. I was doing 50 kilometers per hour when I heard a scratch on the front right side of the car and a girl’s head bob dangerously close to my right window. I looked back, my stomach turning. I saw the group of girls cross the street, looking longingly at my van –- none of them sprawled on the asphalt. Relieved, I drove off muttering how one of them probably gashed my paintwork.
When I reached my destination, I realized what the longing looks were about. A shoulder bag – or what was left of it – was tangled on the van’s bullbar. “My car’s a snatcher!” I thought instantly. But as the comedy of it grew stale, I realized how an extra step or teeny burst of speed could have changed my life forever.
I kept the bag to remind me to be a more careful driver and to assume everyone on the road is part-moron itching to drag me into court for manslaughter.
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9.20.2003
MEET LISA
Meet Lisa, our youngest child. She was born via c-section on September 9, 2003 at 1:49 pm at the Makati Medical Center. She was having a grand time doing pirouettes in mommy’s womb – thus the triple coil cord.
Lisa was only 4.5 pounds at birth – that’s very light compared to her brothers. She probably figured that as obesity runs in the family, she should get a head start on watching her weight.
Lisa had a heplock (an intravenous device that temporarily keeps a vein open) “installed” on her left arm at the hospital – for antibiotics and such. So in the sea of babies in pink and blue bundles at the nursery, Mommy and Daddy identified her as the one raising her arm/splint in protest. A non-conformist on her first day.
Named after her two grandmothers, Anna Felisa is destined to be a walking contradiction as her lola’s are about as opposite as two women can get.
Her US-based aunties nicknamed her Slash, as early in the pregnancy, she was referred to as "Baby-Boy-Slash-Baby-Girl." Not a very original name if she decides to get into a career in rock music; but good enough if she wants to intimidate the hell out of girly-girls in the playground.
She likes spending her days sleeping and likes to play from about 12 midnight to 3 am –- a foretaste of her future nocturnal habits?
Despite all the hoola-baloo (details of which I won’t get into), all that matters now is she’s healthy, she’s beautiful and after more than a week at the hospital, she’s home.
A C-section can be the most painful thing anyone can experience – that is, if you’ve never fallen off a window from five stories up or have never been run-over by a train. But an emergency c-section doesn’t have to be an unhappy experience -- here’re my secrets:
1. Enjoy being prepped for surgery. If you think about it, being prepared for a c-section is like being at a spa, with a 1:20 client-attendant ratio. Just ignore the knives and the foot-long needles and the fact that you’re strapped to a table like a sacrificial lamb.
2. Memorize this mantra, as it would come in handy during the crucial 2 days after surgery: Fart is my friend. Fart is my friend. Fart is my . . .
3. Be very nice to the goofy OB residents in braces. They are the only ones authorized to pump your IV with the yummy Novaine that dulls the blinding pain which will haunt you for days.
4. Start thinking of a nice tattoo to complement the 5-inch incision below your belly button. I'm thinking -- Slytherin.
5. When post-partum depression starts to hit and you’re feeling like beat-up meat slab, imagine you’re a movie star and you just had liposuction. Sounds a tad more glamorous, at least.
6. Share the joy with your husband. Leave your maid at home and ask him to empty the bedpan and change your maternity pads, while your immobile. "It's the price for the 30 minutes of fun we had nine months ago, dear."
7. Hold your child in your arms – and you’ll instantly know for a fact that the torture was worth it.
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9.15.2003
STUPID QUESTIONS
I was a patient at the Makati Medical Center from August 30 to September 12 (Relax, I won’t bore you with the details of the state of my bodily functions). In that period of time, I came across many brilliant and caring health care professionals, as well as a few from the other end -- waaay back on the other end of the spectrum.
A student nurse got my permission to ask some questions for what I assumed to be standard medical profiling. Right after “Do you have any allergies?”, the kid goes, “Do you have any problems with your family?” I said, “No” when I wanted to whack her on the head and bellow, “Hija, I’m here to deliver a child. The psych patients are ten floors down.”
A nutritionist sat down with me to revel at the range of hospital cuisine. She asked: “So, do you have any food preferences?” I said, “No, I have none” when I really wanted to grab her by the shirt collar and shake her into realizing the obvious, “Lady, I’ve been on a low-salt, low-fat, zero-caffeine diet for nine months. I want potato chips, a cheese pizza and a caramel frapuccino!”
After hours of lying in bed, fighting the tendency to sleep the day away and render my brain lethargic, I was entering the REM sleep phase at around 10 pm one night, when I awoke to an urgent tap and a nurse aide’s wide-eyed query, “Ma’m, ilang beses na ho kayo nag-wiwi [how many times have you peed] since 2 pm?” I ignored her completely – but I would have enjoyed bonking her unconscious with a bed pan.
So much has happened since my on-line absence. More soon.
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