SPEAKING OF NOW

Hello, stranger.

That greeting is actually not just for you, dear reader, but also for me, dire writer, so welcome back to both of us. I'd prefer not to waste time and pixels addressing the whys and wherefores of my inactivity and instead focus on getting this blog back up and running. Again. For the eleventeenth time.

Two things: I made a quick redesign, nothing too fancy, and I imported a bunch of posts from my other blogs, which by the way were quite surprising as I could not remember writing some of them at all. I even took some phrases and googled them, flanked by quotation marks, to make sure they were truly mine and not lifted from somewhere else (good news: mine!). Also, I've decided to write my posts the way an educated adult should and quit emulating E.E. Cummings.

Speaking of, I'm going to be a father again! Of a baby boy this time, which is just whoawesomazing. Yes, that's whoa, awesome, and amazing in one word because that's how I feel about it. Especially since my wife and I have been trying for so long. I wanted him to be born in 2013 (because duh) but I guess the financial crisis caused massive stork layoffs and delayed the delivery of our son to April of this year, which is peachy fine. Really. It's not like time seems to go slower when you wait for something. It's only three more months, no biggie. I very patient.

Speaking of, during Jeean's third checkup, my heart twerked when we heard the little human's heartbeat for the first time and I had to control myself from RKOing the nurse and yelling, "Science, bitch!". Then, a few months later, when OB/GYN Kenobi pointed an arrow to our son's tallywacker on the ultrasound screen, I shook my fists in the air and screamed in victory as I saw our future together projected onto the inner walls of my skull: my wife and I playing Final Fantasy VII Remake on the PS5; Iaine and her little brother washing the dishes.

Oh, and Iaine, who is as excited, if not more, as I am, is turning six this week. She's grown so fast. Feels like it was only yesterday when I dropped her off to school and told her to do well in her exams. Wait. That was actually yesterday. What day is it today? Anyways, those six long years mean I have basically unlearned all the baby care skills I mastered when Iaine was still small. However, I fear not the slumberless nights for I know that when the epic newborn is thrust into this dimension, I shall regain all that power and conquer the realm of second-time fatherhood. So bring on the poop!

One more thing I seem to have unlearned: properly ending blog posts. So bye?



P.S. That is the first and the last time I will use the word that starts with T and means "shake your butt like shit is stuck."
P.P.S. My wife's OB/GYN is not really named Kenobi.
P.P.P.S. Is it the third week of April yet? Please be the third week of April when I wake up tomorrow.
P.P.P.P.S. Actually, please be April after Iaine's birthday. Sorry, Iaine.

ii

day after tomorrow, my daughter turns two years old. day after today is when we'll celebrate it. day after yesterday, i post my blog opener for the year and as i flip through my memory tome, i realize how much has changed. iaine has grown a lot as a little lady and i have grown a lot as a man.

during my bachelor years, i often questioned my purpose. i went from job to job, none of them lasting for more than a year. i'd withdraw my salary and spend it all. then i'd be broke and alone and i'd space out contemplating my life. i was trapped in that cyle for too long with nary a penny put aside for the proverbial precipitation period. even when jeean came into my life, i still lacked that special skill to cope with workplace bullshit.

when iaine was born, something was triggered in me. when i saw her for the first time, i knew the answer. suddenly, my life had reason. that i had to man up and take care of this child. it was my chance to prove i was worth something. no more impulse buying and pointless splurging. no more happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care attitude. no more quitting when the corporate heat is unbearable. iaine is my north. iaine is my bottomless hero drink. iaine is my gravity. iaine is my 42.

now, i have a stable job and i could provide for my family with more than enough to spare. i have had two promotions and very much inspired to pursue the next rung on the ladder. it has been two years of watching a slice of evolution unfold before my very eyes, of bragging about her early milestones and pwning parenthood copycats, of going home tired and sleepy but staying awake to watch her dream, of feeling complete. im sure that as time goes by, she'll have more ways to make me happy, amazed and proud as a father.

happy second birthday, iaine. i love you very much.

it's not always rainbows and butterflies

here's a rundown of stuff that happened recently. why? because i own this blog and i could put pictures of booger sculptures if i wanted to. also, any incoherence will be deliberate. anyways, grab a sandwich. this might take a while. (the reading of the post, not the booger sculptures)

burn baby burn
i realized that the creation story regarding a god making humans out of clay and cooking them in an oven is probably true because the only explanation for this ridiculously hot summer is that we are being reheated. last monday, i woke up with itchy arms. i had rashes near my elbows. as far as i know, i have no allergies. what's weirder was that the rashes suddenly disappeared and migrated to my buttcheeks, then to my thighs. as a believer of mind over body, i endure the itch til the next day, which i did not know was scheduled as worst heartburn day. ive had mild gerd attacks for years that went away upon burps. this last one proved strong for not only did it repel my eructative abilities but rendered different pills useless. when eating became painful, i gave up. i took time off work and spent three days in a hospital, nursed by my wife and roused from sleep by nurses. on my last day there, they knocked me out with anesthesia and alien probed my insides. (looked like i swallowed a tiny wolverine on berserker barage) before that, my wife kept asking me if i was afraid. actually i was looking forward to it. i wanted to know what i would see during loss of consciousness. so when i was in the operating room and they were about to press a chlorofor-filled hanky on my face, i was like, this is it, im going to find out what coma patients dream of. which was nothing. something that tasted like piss was sprayed into my mouth and my eyes closed to blink, and then i opened them again and i was somewhere else. i had teleported to a garage. diagnosis: gastritis, esophagitis, hiatal hernia and urticaria. chocolates, spicy food, juices, softdrinks, beer and a bunch of others are categorized as should be consumed. went home almost immediately after the procedure and awaited the excuse for the botched rapture that some moron predicted and so many morons believed. there should be a rule that anyone who makes a prediction that doesn't happen gets pooped on by all skeptics. and anyone who believed the bullshit licks the poop off.

sweet child o' ours
there's so much to be said about our daughter, and yet none of it wont be enough. iaine is such a beautiful little girl. she's always smiling, always happy and it's infectious. she makes us all laugh with her tricks and random quirks. like when we were on the bed and i saw her clamp her lips shut as if she had eaten something. i grabbed her and tried to fish it out with my index finger but couldnt because iaine wouldnt open her mouth. so i told her to say "aah" and she just gave me the funniest half-opened mouth face. i just lost my wits there and found out that there really wasn't anything in there. i got pwned by my own daughter. the only time she starts a hissy fit is when her slumber's cut short. but even that doesnt last long. she'll be clingy and frowny for a while but then revert to good mood real quick. as with all kids, she'll blow a fuse when you take away from her something she wants but it won't last long or develop into an all-out hellspawned tantrum. i want to teach her early on that you can't always have everything you want. but what iaine is really, really good at is being sweet. this is the greatest reward of parenthood, of having a job, of giving love. i work my arse off to take the pig meat home. i try to get as much sleep as i can on weekeneds but can't because sometimes iaine would half-wake up in the middle of night and id have to give her milk to keep her calm. that and all of the many, many ordeals a new parent had to go through, reduced to microscopic size when compared to the overpowering warmth of iaine's sweetness, which i don't even know if she understands or not. the other day, she woke me up with a kiss on the cheek and then proceeded to do the same to her mother. and yesterday, my wife and i had a small argument downstairs and weren't in speaking terms when we lied on the bed upstairs. iaine was trying to get some sleep and probably noticed the silence so she took my hand then took her mother's hand and put them on top of each other. cue minitears. chibihime patched things up for us. on a totally unrelated note, how did abs-cbn get a way with titling their new series after the famous rock band? (answer: by using the same power of unoriginality that allowed gma7 to rip off yo gabba gabba)

marooned (and how was the sandwich btw?)
first foreign artist's concert i ever watched was vanilla ice in araneta coliseum when i was in grade school. second was bon jovi in rizal memorial sports complex in high school. and third was linkin park in ccp open grounds a few years ago. capping off my very long weekend is the much-anticipated maroon 5 concert, which i had filed a leave and bought tickets for about one month prior. this was primarily for my beloved love because even though im working 5 days a week and we have a child to take care of, i still wanted us to be able to spend time together like before we got married. of course, with the aforementioned factors and time constraints, we dont get to do it as much. a movie here, a dinner there. so i thought the maroon 5 show was a great rare moment date for us. plus it's actually her first concert experience. so we put off watching house episodes on bed and queued up with the marooners (i dont know if they're actually called that), bronze tickets in hand. we found a nice spot and camped there. when the lights went out and the drums pounded out, the awesome soundtrip began. the band sounds exactly the same live, which is always nice. jeean spent the whole hour and a half of pop rock music perched on the rails. inside the smx convention center, i noted three types of maroon 5 fans. the chill ones who went there for the music (where we belong); the uptights, who were there because they can afford a handful of vip tickets but dont really know the band so they just sit in their chairs waiting for freebies to be thrown their way; and the fantards who know every single word of every song and who'd sacrifice their vocal chords just to scream the name of the vocalist who cant even hear them. i admit, i merely downloaded the maroon 5 tracks but i really believe that the best way to support a band you like is to watch their concerts. and to jeean: "back and forth we sway like branches in a storm, change the weather still together when it ends." i love you very much. looking forward to more adventures our copycats will try to imitate but fail at miserably.

usually i'd type out a couple of sentences to signal the end of the blog post and wrap things up but


p.s. on the bus ride to manila, there was a family of four in front of me and when the bus conductor handed them their tickets, two of which were discounted, the father asked the conductor how much all of it was. the conductor said later because he had other people to attend to. to the model father of two, use your brain, asswipe.

there are b-sides to every story

years ago, round the time when i only had one sibling, my father worked overseas. he'd mail us pictures of himself standing alone in the middle of the desert or sitting in his room, wearing a keffiyeh and sporting a badass beard and my mom would send him photographs of us with notes written on the back. and then, sometimes we'd be gathered in the living room, hunched over this silver casette player making voice recordings. though i have no distinct recollection of what childish crap i yapped about to my far-flung father (probably how we missed him, my shoe size and some toy i wanted to have), i do remember a particular portion of those recordings, the recurrent theme song of my parents that concluded our voice tapes:

 

anyways, to compare, if in the future i leave my family to work abroad, there'll be no hardcopy photos in the mail with scribbles in the back, we got facebook. and jeean wont have to subdue a hyperactive iaine just to record her wishlist, we got skype. still, the mere thought living several time zones apart from my two beloveds is an immediate ticket to boohooville. acclimating to different area codes was hard but i managed it because there's text and that comforting knowledge of being able to scurry home in a dozen jiffies. to actually spend a year or two in another country without getting to hug my wife or play with my daughter is gonna be quite an ordeal. i extremely hope that it never comes to that.

p.s. as of this typing, hitgirl is still battling cold and fever. give the cute little baby girl a break, will ya?

p.p.s. and my best friend, jeean, is dueling with stress. cut the gorgeous sexy woman some slack, will ya?

...and i'm back (to blogging/working)

hmm just before i sat to type, i had a couple of excuses sentences constructed in my idea factory explaining why the blog was in limbo for three-months but i decided not to put them here for the same reasons that the blog was in limbo for three-months.

anyways, if you watch futurama then get prof. farnsworth's voice in your head because i'm about to say: "good news, everyone!" im a bum father no more! well, im a long way from buying my daughter dollhouses and ponies but i just landed a job as a transcriber for a research/software company and it's really great. ive worked for many companies that declared their employees were their assets and they valued their workforce but those words have never been true until now. i refuse to go into details but let's just say that the perks definitely perk you up.

the downside of it all is that five days a week, im far from iaine and jeean. it's impossible not to miss my wonderchild and loving wifi. skype helped but even if it ever gets the 3d upgrade, it can never equate with the bliss of actually being there with them. treading new environment and making new friends was fun but i kept counting the hours that always seemed to stretch further every time i checked the time.

when i got home this morning, i came upon a sleepy iaine who beamed up at the sight of me. i carried her and she gave me a where-have-you-been look. the super spouse arrived shortly and i was happy to be surrounded by love. iaine and jeean are the two defibrillator paddles to my work-worn heart.

i listen to the art of war during my office-bound commuting and sun tzu said: "do not interfere with an army that is returning home" because a man whose heart is set on returning home will fight to the death against any attempt to bar his way and is therefore too dangerous an opponent to be tackled.

clear!


p.s. the awesomous wifus is also undergoing training of her own. what has two thumbs and is very proud of his nurse wife? this guy.
p.p.s. ...and i'm 30 years old.

parental guidance

chronicling iaine's growth in a full-length indie film called life.

timestamp: a stellar birth on prime-earth

what: most. kickass. childbirth. ever.

where: st. patrick's hospital + palacio de lanting
when: february 5-8 2010
who: jaiskizzy (big daddy), jeeanfoxy (beautiful mommy), the world's greatest parents, parents-in-law, relatives and friends, the super doctor team hyperforce, single-serving nurses
why: cuteness equilibrium

day1/friday/february5: the new equation
400pm: it has been decided that jeean shall undergo cesarean section delivery the following day so all the bags of necessities that were starting to accumulate dust in the living room are finally loaded for transport. my mom, our househelp and i take the pregnant goddess to the hospital for mortals.
500pm: after squeezing the car to the tightest parking spot i have ever encountered, i carry our stuff (looking like a guy on a 1-year vacation all by himself) and head straight to 221, the room reserved for us, where i spend an awkward moment of silence and stares with two maintenance dudes. and then i receive the 5-second late text message that jeean and her mother-in-law are in the admitting office. anyways, i dont hate paperwork, paperwork hates me and i am very thankful that i have a wife to handle the sheetflow with her excellent penwomanship. glad i dont have to struggle with providing the requested information in hieroglyphics.
600pm: we hold fort in 221 and chill, literally because the air-conditioner seems like it was manufactured by eskimos. i am appointed legman and my first errand is to buy dinner: the infamous pulang pansit. (i accompanied the local pasta with some grilled pork, chicken and hotdog and proudly but silently beat the vendor's calculator in purchase computation). mom-in-law, my dad and sibs shortly arrive with their comestible contributions.
1000pm: my co-producer and i have the room to ourselves. the tv's on as background score to our conversation in dim. the sandman is out on a break, allowing us to talk about our daughter-to-be, how our relationship's tumultuous beginning segued into an awesome knot-tying and is now a page away from a new chapter entitled parenthood. finally, after nine months of pain and pee, clinic and food trips, kicks and hiccups, tears and cheers, and waiting and wailing, our wonderchild, our cherubic aesthete, our little cuddler, the amalgam of the best of our dna is about to exit the void and bombard our lives with immeasurable brighthappycuteawesomeness.
1100pm: the enceinte enchantress is asleep. her mondobizarro monsterhero is wide awake, lost in reverie. soon, his palpebrae superior and inferior reunite for the time being...

day2/saturday/february6: do babies dream of electric lambs?
600am: i am bathing diagonally in the narrow shower space. the plumbers must be eskimos as well because the water is goosebumpin' cold. cleansed, i put on my pink big daddy shirt (because im into that kind of shit, so what). after enjoying her warm water wash, jeean is dextrosed up by a nurse who is pregnant as well.
700am: the world's prettiest pregnant person is on a wheelchair. she is smiling but there is an apparent and understandable trepidation on her face. our mothers join the hallway parade toward the operating room. i remember many hospital scenes in movies where the gurney is pushed into the double doors and as they close, the leads have enough slow-mo time moment to stare at each other and wish for an oscar award. unless it's one where the significant other gets to be at patient's side but as much as i want to be with her the whole time like that, spousal support is prohibited inside. a while later, i return to the operating room entrance to give our digital camera to my sister who is a doctor and has a backstage pass.
730am: my psp reads game over for the nth time as i cant concentrate enough to advance through the game. i am number-twoing by the way, big time. it's as if all the excitement, worry and bonheur had been blendered together and turned into unstoppable poop. i then hear my doctorsister enter and bring the good news. my mom and mom-in-law race each other to see their first granddaughter while the baby's father struggles through his excremental ordeal. once done, he who sometimes enjoys referring to himself in the third person cleans himself up in haste.
800am: minitears fight for freedom but i impede their escape. flanked by two happy women on the verge of tears themselves, i am looking at a beautiful sleeping baby girl with full red lips and chubby cheeks wrapped in cloth. she is iaine sivela feona and she is my daughter and i am the happiest newfather that ever breathed. imagine all the books you want to read, all the dvds you want to watch, all the chocolate you want to eat, everything that can make you glad to be alive, imagine all are yours for free, for the rest of your life, that feeling is probably just half an atom of how it feels to see your child for the first time. i am speechless (as i am now, typing this) for the word that can exactly define the feeling has yet to exist. the only coherent thing to come out of my mouth was "hello, iaine."
830am: iaine's nascent pictures are already reaping comments on facebook. i am walking to the drugstore to buy our baby's milk. the minitears that demanded release? out they go, now that i am alone.
1100am: newmom returns to 221 half-conscious, in pain. she stays in rest mode as congratulators start coming in batches. each batch goes to the nursery to take a peep at iaine and i always tag along just to see her again. most of the time, the little cuddler is asleep but there are a few times she's crying in high pitch, displaying her singing prowess which she inherited from her mother. these visits sans physical contact are nice but not enough. i want to hold iaine real bad. jeean soon regains consciousness but she is not allowed to eat solids until she has passed gas. whenever everyone's eating, i don't so that jeean doesn't feel left out.
100pm: in a hole on the ground near our house, i put books, papers, pens and one of my drumsticks together with iaine's placenta as told by the elder believers. no harm in obliging.

day3/sunday/february7: this too shall pass
1200pm: with the catheter off, i escort my co-creator to the bathroom to take a leak. this is the part of motherhood i never had any idea of. i thought that after the nine-month challenge and the delivery drama, she'd be pirouetting by now. instead, it's a painful piss. she holds on to me and i wish i was the one in pain instead. a couple more trips to the toilet seat and her urinal anguish subsides to tolerable state.
200pm: jeean is recovering real quick. she can walk with minimal assistance. she's on a soft food diet, getting tired of the flavorless porridge. still no fart. (i cant believe i am actually waiting for my wife to fart). the continuous flow of visitors help hasten her recuperation. some flatulence and feces later, the goddess of all things cute and sexy is munching on mangoes.
900pm: our ob-gyne/wedding sponsor drops by to change jeean's gauze dressing and throw some great news: we can go home the next day. the bikini cut looks fine, nigh-invisible if not for the small stitches on the sides.

day4/monday/february8: homeward-bound
900am: the stuff we came in with has doubled and i am getting myself a tan and workout carrying all of it to the family car parked two blocks away. we're just waiting for the starter gun to fire so we can go and live our new life as a family of three independent of hospital control.
1000am: my optical floodgates open wide at the sight of iaine on the bed in front of me with no glass window between us. i used to dread this moment because movie scenes of a child being born kind make me tear up a bit and i was pretty sure that when i experience that moment it would be like all my nose hairs have been pulled out for everyone to see. but now i dont mind the onlookers seeing this hardened meat of a man rendered tender by his dreamy, dreaming daughter. let's go home, sweetheart.
1100am: my sisdoc and i are stuck in motionless car queue. we had taken a shortcut to steer clear of the regular midday traffic jam but thanks to the arrival of president darkmole evildwarf, we stumble upon roadblock after roadblock until we're back to square one of the route we've previously avoided. jeean and iaine are in separate vehicle, several gearshifts behind.
1200pm: home, sweetheart, home...


p.s. happy one-month, iaine...

advent child

nine months ago, my muse and i made love. but that day was unlike the others. it was beyond the sensual enlacement of soul and body. we did not just become one. we achieved the perfect catalyst spark of our bond to ignite the biological flame. that day, my muse and i made love and created life.

any moment now, that love we have made will be born. and it is with immense delight for us that our little cuddler will lead this (r)evolutionary existence as a girl. to be honest, i wanted a son. actually we all wished for a boy. for months, our daughter kept her privates concealed and her parents perplexed. around that time, the gender didnt matter to us anymore. all we wanted then was for the baby to be healthy and when her femininity was finally revealed, we didnt have an ounce of disappointment. that confirmation put my imagination on full throttle. i saw myself reading poetry to her, combing her hair while she plays chopin on the piano, watching horror movies with her and running on a beach shore with her. jeean and i even spent a whole night perfecting the name we want for her. our tigress's name, which sounds uniquely sweet (or sweetly unique), shall be unveiled on the day of her emergence.

i dont want to divulge the minutiae of our planned parenting procedures but one thing weve sworn not to do is persuade her into a career she does not want. we will do our very best to guide her to a happy but proper way of life, making sure she does not grow up into a makeup-dependent social-climbing bimbo prancing around and talking like a two-bit cyprian. but alas i am getting too far ahead of myself. pardon this impatient parent for craving his cherubic aesthete's expeditious liberty from her uterine sanctuary.

i may use big words now but none of them will suffice to define exactly how happy and proud i am to be the father of this baby. i know that this odyssey isn't just smiles and tickles and baby unicorns galloping on rainbows, but im not one bit afraid. they way i see it, fatherhood is like leveling up as a man, the same with hitting puberty, having a job and getting married, and such furtherance presents new challenges to overcome (birthday boss battle) and new skills to be learned (+1 diaper dexterity). and there'll be no game overs for me in this epic two-player adventure until the day i die.

anyways, whenever she chooses to come out, may our daughter have a safe journey, both for her and her mother, from dimension womb to her vast, new, playground world where boundless love awaits her.