The Journey. It’s Mine. [My personal take on love, life, parenting and blogging.]

Time flies…when you are blogging for a living and when you are sole contributor to the money pot that’s taking awfully long to fill up.

(he he, butas yata ang money pot ko.)

Anyway, I just woke up one day that:

1. Raine is not wearing diapers in bed anymore diapers are off my grocery list. ( i have to wake him up though sometime between 12 MN to 3 AM to go pee)
2. Raine has grown taller and leaner. (i’m barely 5 ft tall, he comes up just below the breastline already and he’s only four!)
3. I missed BlogParteeh07, the biggest Filipino bloggers’ event of the year.
4. It will soon be a year since we got here but I haven’t been back to the beach.

Where’d the time go? I used to be able to carry Raine in one hand and now he’s asking questions like “why is the sky blue?” and “kung meron din bang buto (bicol for penis) sina tito kambal?”

Actually, I am scared of those intelligents questions he’d come up with. BUT, they’re great don’t you think?

…and I’m not complaining. Though the night breeze is still cold, at least it isn’t raining anymore and looks like summer will be here soon.

Actually the beach is just a 10-15 minute drive but I haven’t even been near its shores. Most hours of the day, I am stucked in a hole, surfing the net and blogging. When I’m not blogging (and working on my blog entries), I’m either playing and watching CDs with Raine or putting him to sleep.

When Raine is in dreamland, I’m watching DVDs. He he. (pirated ones that my brothers got hold of somewhere)

The past few days I’ve been crazy with the James Bond Collection. Since I’ve been watching James Bond movies even before I can understand english (because my father was such a James Bond fanatic), I reckon it is time to watch them old 007 movies now that I can not only understand english but drink vodka martini shaken not stirred without wincing.

Apparently, Amazon has 4 volumes of James Bond Ultimate Collection: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4.

I hope I’m done before it starts raining again.

This is sort of Raine’s trademark smile. In most of his photos he is always smiling. Indeed he is a joyful child. Not just a pose for the camera.

Everytime I open my eyes in the morning (when he’s awake) that smiling face close to mine is the first thing I’d see. Unlike me (usually grumpy in the morning) Raine smiles upon waking up.

This morning (around 5 am) I heard Raine giggling. His face so close to mine I thought he’s up to something naughty. But he was sleeping. He’s giggling in his sleep! Must be some happy dream.

Well I just wanted to share, first time this happened and I thought while half-sleep myself that little angels were giggling that early and I felt so happy and blessed.

Raine: Mommy, bakit si Tarzan walang damit?

Me: Kasi mga gorilla ang nagpalaki sa kanya, eh ang mga gorilla hindi nagsusuot ng damit.

Raine: Pero dapat pag umaalis nagbibihis ng damit di ba?

Me. Oo naman, dapat lang.

I’ve cried at weddings, and always, I’ve been awed by news of pregnancies and newborns. In fact, I still do. Despite the fact that marriage seems like a Greek word in my vocabulary and another baby has turned into a scary thought. But that’s just me.

Don’t get me wrong. Actually, I envy friends who have had babies number 2 and 3 and the news of other friends tying the knot still come to me with glee.

Honestly, I still would like to walk down the aisle to the altar of marriage, cook dinner for a man, and give Raine a brother or a sister. I guess Raine would love that, he’s (currently at least) crazy about babies and would of course welcome a “partner in crime” for a sibling.

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Raine: Mommy, bakit si Jollibee hindi nagsasalita?

Me: Kasi bee siya.

Raine: Ahh. Mga tao lang ang nagsasalita?

Me. Ahh. Oo. Parang ganun.

After being bored I guess with working on his own stuff early last night, Raine suddenly decided he’d like to watch his Jollibee CDs.

In the middle of composing my blog posts while watching the local evenings on TV at the corner of one eye (my PC is located in way that I can see the TV monitor in the corner of the right eye), Raine then started bugging me that since the TV is on, he’d rather watch the CDs in my PC.

Checking the parallelism of subject-verb agreements in a complex sentence I was working on (and still listening to the TV’s audio without looking up from the monitor in front of me), I tried to ignore Raine. He kept nagging and bugging…still I ignored.

Maybe two- three minutes after I decided that one paragraph made sense, Raine was still pushing and my brain can now feel the pressure. Not wanting to explode on Raine (because it is not really his fault) I looked up at the ceiling and screamed: arghhhh!!! Ang hirap mag-isip ano!!

Then I got up and shifted the TV on video and played the Jollibee CD. (putek na news yan!) In the process of operating the remote control, I turned to Raine in my calmest tone:

Me: Alam mo Raine …kaya ako nagagalit…kasi puede ka namang maghintay di ba? Ang hirap kayang mag-isip at mag-type habang nangugulit ka pa…

Raine: Alam mo mommy…

Me (interrupting Raine): …Alam mo namang nagta-trabaho ako di ba? (pause) O ano nga yung sasabihin mo?

Raine: Alam mo mommy…sorry.

It was like cold water in the face and I felt like crying so I stooped down and hugged Raine tight.

Hayy…maybe I should bring this PC back to town.

Where has 2006 gone? I hardly noticed. But let me just say that it was the best year for me, in the sense that it was a year of major decisions. The year I (finally) found the courage to take fateful turns in several aspects of my life: not just career-wise but personally.

What career anyway? OK, let’s just say that I seized the moment once more and dropped the convenience and comforts (security too?) of an 8-5 job and victoriously closed another chapter of this book called Me, My Life and I.

Seizing the moments…what a line isn’t it?! You and I have heard it before or read about it before. Honestly, I have allowed its power to rule most of my adult life and it’s just amazing how my executive editor used such lines in the context of problogging career goals in her year-end newsletter.

Okay, I may not be proud of all the things I did in the past 33 years but I am not in the least bit sorry that I did each and every one of them. All of those made me who I am and what I am today. (Yeah, including the consequences of moments I’ve seized or at least tried to or even thought so.)

It has been a difficult journey, but I do not regret that I have Raine now. It was both mind-blowing and mind-boggling but I will never regret leaving my previous job. I’ve said things to people and wrote stuff to some people and about some people that hurt and indeed meant to hurt. But really I am NOT sorry for doing those. I’ve seized the moments and reacted like what both my heart and mind told me how to react, I was just being true to myself and yes, i felt much much better afterwards.

Sige na nga, total uso naman ang new year’s resolution:

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