Raising Alex

It gets to me at times, you know. It gets to me that I might not be doing this motherhood thing right.

On socio-economics:

ALEX: Ma, why does Annika ride a car to school while I take a sikad?
CHIN: Because you’re smarter than Annika.
ALEX: Smart girls ride trisikad?
CHIN: Yes, but the smartest ones walk.
WETT: Ma, stop!
CHIN: But it’s true! People back then attained unimaginable heights of brilliance because they didn’t have contraptions to bog them down. Rizal walked to school! Einstein walked to school!
ALEX: Can I walk to school with Rizal and Einstein?

On biology:

NEIGHBOR: Oh wow! Your mommy is pregnant.
ALEX: Yes. It’s because of Dad’s sperm and Mama’s egg.

I don’t know how other mothers do it - explain truths in PAMET-approved ways. I used to shush Alex whenever she gets too creative with her questions. What happens to dead babies? Why doesn’t Renan go to my school? Are we rich? Why aren’t we rich? How come you don’t wash our clothes but Junior’s mom does? Evasion is never good, however, because if she doesn’t get answers from me, she would get them from someone else. So now, I dredge up what honesty I could, given the circumstances, and try not to flinch whenever she asks questions with not so nice answers.

I console myself with the thought that while my daughter might not be getting the usual upbringing, she’s at least getting an interesting and - when appropriate - scientifically correct one. 

Bad Hair Rising

I wonder why it always comes down to hair. When women feel sad, stuck, or lost, they either shop til their personal coffers shrivel or they go to a salon to have their locks chopped.

I’m ready for change, she’d say. I’m welcoming the new me. I’m saying hi to a new life.

So, new life ergo new hairstyle?

For years, it puzzled me - this female willingness to have a go at the only thing that stands between scalp and universe. Mind you, I do the same thing, too. Not only do I turn on my hair when I get bored, I do the cutting myself and often, to disastrous consequences. I’ve lost count of the times the hub dragged me to the nearest salon for a next-day salvage mission. I know it’s a mess, he’d tell an attendant, but surely there’s something you can do?

Now, I think I have it all figured out, which is only fitting, really, because I’m the only girl I know who bores herself so much she gets a different cut and color every two months or so. Right now, it’s plum brown and a short bob with bangs; a month ago, it was chocolate brown and layered. But, I digress.

Hair is the easiest to have a go at because it’s the only part of ourselves we can snip at and hack away without losing forever. When we’re pained, we tend to dramaticize everything. Somehow, no matter how illogical it seems, chopping away a part of our anguished, frustrated selves seems liberating; it’s almost as if the simple act of getting a haircut is a salve, an easy way to cauterize a wound or soothe a dissapointment. But why hair? Well, Why not hair? You cannot lop your liver off and expect it to grow back five centimeters a month. And, perhaps, even the most jaded of us see hair as a metaphor for selfhood. When you get rid of inches of hair, you end up growing a glossier, healthier mane. The same might be said of us when we throw away excess physical or emotional baggage.

You see where I’m getting at, don’t you? Haircutting is a completely adult means of expression, perhaps even actualization. It’s symbolic of the willingness to accept change, or stand out from the rest of the huddled masses that lead lives of quiet desperation. Or then again, this post could just be me trying to rationalize that most horrible of self-inflicted horrors - a bad haircut.

Hello, Wednesday.

Cosmopolitan and the Beauty of Purchasing Power

I read voraciously but I’ve always drawn the line at magazines and newspapers; the latter because it’s depressing and the former because I don’t need to take a ten-item quiz to know my spending habits or the kind of bra I’d make if I were to become a lingerie.

Thanks to my recent week-long house arrest, however, I’ve become a Cosmo convert. I mean, come on. How could you not like Cosmo? The girls populating Cosmo’s pages are gorgeous. They make me want to weep, and potentially become a lesbian. Then too, there are the clothes, and shoes, and bags, and all the shiny thingamajiggies you could hang on your ears, neck, and wrists. I’ve never paid attention to those fancy-schmanzy designers and their ridiculously overpriced items, but of late, I’m beginning to like – no, covet – monogrammed bags and fancily named moisturizers that promise to singlehandedly halt the natural aging process.

If I haven’t said this before, I’m saying it now. Marketing people are such geniuses! I wish I had been smart enough to hire one to make my resume. They make the frivolous sound necessary. Consider how easily they make one bag sound like gold: A wonderful blend of practicality and signature Louis Vuitton luxury, the ___________ is perfect for the chic chick who values beauty as much as functionality. Its roomy interior can easily house a Mac while its classic monogrammed canvas is accented with sleek golden hardware and sumptuous natural cowhide trim for an elegant finish.

Such romanticization makes me feel almost sad at being unable to buy an LV. I really, really should have hired a marketing person to write my resume. Given the right hype, my boss would have felt that by hiring me, he is paying for a vital way of life rather than paying one of the struggling masses.

Four-year-old Girls Have No Business Dating

On house arrest for days now and with Alex as my only companion, I’ve come to dread the questions she’d ask me while we lounge in bed.

It fascinates and confuses me, the way this little girl’s mind works.

Boyfriend nimo si daddy, ma?

Ah. Kay small pa man ko, boyfriend lang nako si Renan, unya inig big na nako, mag-married na mi.

I swear I gaped at her before I got myself to ask: Nganong ganahan man kag naay boyfriend? Four years old pa gani ka.

She smiled sweetly: Para naay maghold sa akong hand, unya mag-watch mi ug movie, unya magtext me sa each other.

Patay! As if parenting isn’t tough enough on its own, now I have to compete with Star Cinema and the yaya’s notions of love and dating. Heaven help me, where do I buy a manual for discussing life and relationships with little people?

Hands

In one of our very, very rare jaunts to the mall, I asked him: "Why do you walk the way you do? Always a little to the front of me, never beside."

"I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you’re so short and small, and I hate the idea of you having to push your way through a crowd."

"So, you’re my bulldozer, in a manner of speaking, and you keep me safe by walking in front of me while you hold on to my hand?"

He laughed. "I could think of better nouns than bulldozer, but yeah, I suppose I’m being a bulldozer that way."

I smiled at him as a beautiful thought crossed my mind.

If I ever find the patience to write a story (and that would take a lot of doing because I am the most impatient person I know), one would have this line:

The boy forges his way through the crowd, his body straight and lean like an arrow. He is hard and cynical, and it shows in his eyes. What little softness he has in him lay in the hand he had slipped behind to curl protectively around hers.

She follows him, her feet nimble and sure, her eyes trusting. She needs no map, no compass. She does not need eyes, even. Her whole world walks
in front of her, and he holds her heart -firmly and tenderly- in his young, slender hand.