Baby Talk

My Dragon Princess,

You are almost a year old now.

I walk in the loft, coming from a meeting, and I immediately see your face light up at the sight of me.

You call out for me in a bright excited scream, and in your jabber I understand that you wanted to be carried. And so I carry you as you speak gibberish while staring into my face; you speak with a weird inflection with just the right pauses that I make out different words from your stammering.

I almost feel sorry that I don’t understand baby talk, but from the excited tone in your voice, I decipher that you just told the story of a happy afternoon playing with a ball that has a bell inside, and that you missed me. I know that you did, because you ended your sentence by softly touching your forehead to my cheeks. I’ve long figured that this gesture equates to a kiss. Because of this, you achieve in melting my heart and so I plant a kiss in your chubby cheeks to return the favor.

I decide that we go to the pool area to spend time together, I still have a few minutes to spare before I go back to writing a script I had to finish. 

So in the pool area, we hang out to practice your walk. I hold your hands for support as you wobble your way into a standing position. At once, you immediately head towards the pool with a determined look in your face. It’s obvious that you want to jump in the water; I can see it in your eyes. 10 months old and you already love to swim.

You aren’t wearing a swimsuit so I say no and carry you away from the pool. You complain for a bit but I explain that it’s too hot and you aren’t properly dressed, so you stop and busy yourself with my cellphone. You pretend to make a phone call and I laugh at you. You giggle because I got your joke.

It’s time that we go back down, so I hold you real tight and break into a run, traversing the pool area towards the elevator in a single breath. You squeal a couple of light-hearted laughs. Speed always makes you happy. Maybe that’s why you grow up so fast. Or maybe you’re just growing up at just the right pace and I’m just not noticing. Time is subjective and the perception of it is influenced by feelings; and with you it feels like a spark, fleeting and something you cannot wholly grasp.

Night starts to fall and our time together is up. There are other things I must attend to so I leave you for now. As I set out to go to a random coffee shop to wrestle with stories and make a living, I stop by your pen and your knowing stare breaks my heart. You babble a few words bereft of the bright tones you had earlier. I may not know your words but sometimes I do sense their meaning. You bend your neck to lean your forehead towards me, and once more I meet it with a kiss. “Goodbye my Princess and I love you too,” I reply. I know that someday we’ll speak the same words, but for now I’m cool with us understanding each other with our hearts.

“I’ll be back before you could say ‘Daddy’,” I add before I turn to leave. As I walk towards the door, I feel my soul wishing that you already could.

Baby steps and a supposed prelude to the end of the world

To my dearest Dragon Princess,

In the eve of your fourth month outside the womb,

--Ancient and sturdy god, Habagat, is on the third day of his yearly visit and with him came his usual entourage of thunderstorms, and they partied hard over the skies of Luzon, blanketing the heavens with a thick veil of dark clouds.

It’s been pouring for three days straight, 80% of the Metro is now underwater. News came out that the floodgates of Ipo and Angat dam will be opened less it collapse from holding too much rainfall. As the night deepens, a fear slithers in everyone’s hearts: for sure it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

A nervous recollection of Ondoy echoes at the back of the collective subconscious, that terrible sneaky storm two years ago that shocked and soaked the nation while killing and destroying many things, both named and nameless, in its wake. But this is not a repeat of that typhoon, it’s worse by a couple of cubic centimeters of rainfall.

Meanwhile, in the religious fanatical fence, the ignorant conservatives blame the RH bill for ticking off God that he sent a torrential monsoon as punishment. It’s not the despicable urban planning, nor the heaps of uncollected trash, not even the lacking metro drainage systems that’s at fault, rather it’s Gods wrath sent upon the Earth in the form of thunderstorm because of a law that promotes safe sex and whatever follows after.

As the death toll rises along with the floodwaters in the metro streets, overseas: US and Japan experience an earthquake, China is visited by a raging typhoon, a volcano awakes after a hundred year sleep in New Zealand, and snow suddenly falls in sweltering South Africa. While in Vietnam, gay marriage has been approved, and perhaps some would like to think that all these catastrophic events are again a result of God’s anger because of this event. I disagree.

That wrathful God doesn’t exist anymore. He left a long time ago, centuries ago. It’s only too bad he is still venerated by a handful of ignorant folks hiding under their confused understanding of morality. Their wrathful God got tired and left the party a couple of centuries past. He left, but in the heavens the party continued. 

In that great hall where concepts take form, the gods and goddesses gather. In a particular corner, by a wide window without curtains, where the air is wet, smelling like fresh dew, Habagat hopes to glimpse Amihan before his time is up. He dearly wishes to see her if only for a moment, for a moment’s stare is enough consummation of their forbidden love. And so he waits, and as he waits the skies pour and grumble.

Meanwhile, on the far end of the hall, that other god Araw, peeks from time to time at the curtain of clouds to make sure that the people in the archipelago are not all dead or drowning. The sickly woman goddess, who goes with so many names, tells Araw that the people will be all right; they will get through this as they have time and time again. “It’s hard to understand, but Habagat is necessary,” she adds. 

Araw nods and sighs in a sad hum: “…for now”. The sickly woman goddess smiles and leaves Araw to sulk in his gloom. She knows that he’ll be in a better mood in half a year’s time.

She turns and resumes her conversation with the young God, son of the wrathful one. They talk about him; he exclaims that he misses his father, although he hopes that he doesn’t return at all. The old woman goddess assures the young one that he will never come back until the end of all concepts.

And the party continues, and it will persist since it began eons ago when another nameless God invented time.

As the celebrations proceed, beautiful goddess Buwan is now drunk and is holding a broken wine bottle, she is held back by the diwatas: Magayon and Ynagigilid, she’s looking for Habagat and is rearing for a fight. But Habagat remains sitting in his corner, in quiet waiting, keeping all to himself his aching desire caused by his forbidden love… and so the rains fall.

Back on earth, in the Philippines, Luzon, NCR: House Speaker Sonny Belmonte declared in the morning that his people should report to work, he changed his mind in the afternoon because a significant part of Commonwealth Avenue disappeared under a raging flood; that night, a sink hole appears in EDSA, near Petron, in front of Connecticut, ripping open a couple of tires from passing cars and causing heavy traffic; in Fairview, a mountain of trash collapses killing some people, a woman cries when she saw her neighbor, a friend, among the dead. There was an infant in Cainta who drowned with his mother; they were found still together, but dead nonetheless. Your cousin in Las Pinas waded through waist-deep floodwaters to search for food, her baby brother Cuervo has ran out of clean water for his formula hours ago. In our house in Brookside, your Lolo breaks sweat as he plays pingpong vigorously for two hours straight and counting; distracted from time to time by Nacho, the Chihuahua, who barks every time thunder booms.

Meanwhile, in the 17^th floor of our condo, as the rain reduces the view of Quezon City into a soft blur, I hold you by your armpits and you laugh as you take your first few steps… and as you do, I laugh with you.  

The Turning Point

Writing depends much on timing. I know. I do this for a living. That doesn’t mean though that I do it well; although, I do it well enough that I get paid; well enough that people (sort of) put up with my eccentricities and shortcomings. I can be a problematic writer sometimes. And time has been my main problem when writing, because there’s just never enough of it. When I write, I should be in the right mood, right place, and right state of mind, and these factors should meet in a particular moment at the same time.

Now, with the telling of this story, the timing is a bit off. I should have told it weeks ago but I never found the time. Work’s been hectic. Oddly though, now, while waiting for you to arrive, inside a hospital room at 3am, while you and your mom labored at the far end of the hallway from where I am, I feel like I have all the time in the world. Now, with nothing but you in my mind, I guess there’s no better time to tell you about the story of when you turned.

It was mid March, and wet mornings alternated with blistering afternoons. It was the start of summer but it already felt like the rainy weeks of June. It was always foolish to expect the outcome of the day’s weather; come to think of it, it’s always foolish to expect anything.

That march afternoon, I vividly remember when I picked up your mom from the office and she was unusually quiet, lost in a daze. It was obvious that she was at work building something inside her, it seems that she's retrofitting her resolve and putting-up support inside her heart where she would finally hold up her inner-strength. Her eyes were lost in deep thought, her chest was heavy, her lips had a forced smile, and something was stuck in her throat.

She just came from a check-up that time. I couldn’t come with her since I had an important meeting that day. I would have wanted to be with her. She could have leaned on me, and that could have made things easier when the doctor said that things would not go as planned with the pregnancy.

We had an ultra sound done on the fourth month. We found out that you were a girl and that you were in a breech position, which means that your feet are facing the exit route instead of your head. We were hoping for a normal delivery but it’s not advisable for a first time mother to normally deliver a breech baby. But it was only the fourth month and a lot could happen. You could still turn. The doctor said we had nothing to worry about.

We had another ultrasound done when you were seven months old inside the womb. We found out that you had ten fingers and ten toes, and you are perfectly healthy, but you’re still in a breech position. Still we kept our fingers crossed that you would turn.

On the eighth month, you’re still the wrong side up. The doctor said that you are already too big to turn. With little room to move, it’s just too late. The odds are you’ll have to come out through a slice in your mom’s tummy and not the normal way.

Your Mom and I had a talk. We figured that it doesn’t matter whichever way you come out as long as you do. And besides breech babies have special powers according to folklore. It’s just a matter of accepting what’s what.

They had us chose a date for delivery. We chose April 1. April fools day, a day of tricks and pranks. I imagine myself playing tricks on you on your birthday. And perhaps someday you’ll play tricks on us as well. I bet you would… you’re my daughter after all.

On the last week of your eighth month, we had our final ultrasound. We weren't hoping at this point but we were surprised to see that you have turned. Once more you’ve beaten the odds. The doctor said it was too late, but you turned anyway. I guess you’re just like me, turning in despite being a little too late.

April 1 came and passed. I guess, even if you’re still unborn, you already played a joke on us.

-0-

Yesterday, the bloody show happened, and when they checked your mom they said that you’d be probably coming out in three days. Once again, you defied expectations and assumptions. Now it’s 4:45 in the morning, a day after the bloody show, and I’ve been waiting for you. I've been here since 9PM, I don’t know where you are and what’s happening to your mom in the labor room. They just give me short updates every two hours. They estimated that you’d come out at around 7AM. It could be true. It doesn’t matter. Just take your time. You always do.

-0-

It's now 5:30. I asked to be with your mom inside the labor room. They wouldn't let me. They asked for my camera. I gave it to them. They said you'd be coming out any moment. For the first time tonight, my heart beats fast. You'll be coming any moment now, and I can't wait.

It's time.

Prelabor Pains

It was already 1AM, April 7— A black, lazy, Saturday. My last memory of that night was finishing a chapter in the ‘Witches’ volume of Fables, a graphic novel that I’ve been following the past few years. In this volume, an evil character – the physical aspect of all that is dark and evil, aptly called the DarkMan-- has escaped from the fantastic homelands and into the real world, threatening humanity and fablekind (characters from the fairy tales and myths who decided to make earth their new home) alike.

With this looming threat, it’s now up to a witch-- (the witch who cursed beast to turn into a beast, Cinderella to fall asleep, and lured Hansel and Gretel into the ginger bread house) to save the day… that is if she could, considering that the DarkMan is one of the principal powers of existence and she’s but a witch from fairy tales. It’s fun stuff, the sort that would keep me awake and hooked till dawn. This particular night though, after a chapter, I blacked out and fell asleep.

Daylight was already blasting through the windows when your mom nudged me into wakefulness and told me that ‘it’s time’. Her water bag just broke, she said. I nodded and told her to take a shower so that I could prepare the bags. But instead of getting up, I stayed in bed chained by a heavy laziness. I just grabbed the comic book from last night and resumed reading. Your mom finished washing herself and came out of the bathroom. She quickly reported that about half a pint of pinkish fluid from inside her dripped into her legs. I asked her if she’s been having contractions, she answered that she’s been feeling some tightness in her tummy but it was painless. I mustered and stirred my will and heaved myself up and dragged myself to the sink and brushed my teeth and told her to make sure that we won’t forget anything.

Then my stomach grumbled. I told your mom that I was hungry. She told me she’s hungry as well. She suggested that we should pass by a fastfood drive-thru on the way to the hospital. Sounded like a plan.

I was thinking of getting a cheeseburger and spaghetti, your mom said that she wanted to munch on some fries. On the way, we talked about potatoes and fast-food fat while rock music played on the radio. But then, the Doctor texted and told us not to eat and head to the prelabor room right away. So we did. My stomach continued to grumble. I looked at your mom and was a bit worried. You should know that she falls into a really dark mood when she’s hungry.

At the pre-labor room, they checked your mom and found that she just had her ‘bloody show’. I know it sounds cool and scary, like a metal band concert, but it just means that the mucus plug inside her broke and her cervix is now prepared for your passage, and when that happens, things get a little bloody. But the thing is, you are still floating inside the uterus and has no signs of engaging yourself to the passage, that and her contractions are still too far apart from each other. It turns out, her water bag is still intact and delivery would not happen for about two to three days. They said that we could still go home and wait for things to progress.

After we left the hospital, we quickly became hungry again. We decided not to eat fastfood but instead grab a bite at one of those eateries serving home cooked meals. Hospitals make people conscious of consuming unhealthy transfat, I surmised. At the eatery, I ate bopis (which isn’t healthy, to say the least) and your mom ate nilagang manok. We also shared a strawberry fruit shake. After eating, we drove back to the condo.

I picked up my comic book again. Your mom lied down beside me and asked me what was happening in the story? I told her that the old witch made herself young again and left the world.

“She left?” She said with a hint of shock. “I thought she’s going to fight off the DarkMan and save the world?”

“Supposedly, but that didn’t happen. And I don’t know what will happen next…”

She reflected for a bit and said: “Well, whoever actually knows what happens next?”

“Precisely.” I said with my know-it-all smugness. “But it’s still a fairy tale, so things will be all right no matter... What sort of 'all right' though is anybody's guess.”

She thought for a bit and looked at me. Her stare meant something but I couldn’t decipher what it meant and I was too lazy to ask. It might be that she’s figured something out and refuses to share it with me. She just opted to close her eyes and remain quiet.

I reached out and held her hand, by then she was already lightly snoring. She was fast asleep. I snuggled close and felt you move inside her. I closed my eyes and waited for you to move again. But you kept still. I waited, but just then, again, I blacked out. And in my sleep, I waited.

You wont be coming out ‘normal’

Unless you’re bacteria, frog, worm, bird, fish, or snake chances are you’re coming out into the world through a vagina. That’s the way nature made mammals. And you are a mammal. You’ll learn why someday (I don’t want to explain, I just want to entertain and maybe confuse you a little.) But when you do learn about these things it’ll probably amuse you at first, and later when you’re in your puberty and you get into the nitty-gritty of being a mammal it’ll probably be awkward; but when you grow older, you’ll begin to study about the mammalian potential and possibilities it’ll just probably sound factual to you (after curiosities are satisfied, of course). By then, you’ll realize that it’s normal to be a mammal (normal doesn’t have anything to do about it, it’s just a category anyway), and it’s normal for baby mammals to go out of a vagina. And if you’re smart, you’ll probably even understand what being normal means. But don’t get ahead of yourself… unlike me.

But then again, like I said, you are not coming out normal. You won’t go out through a vagina like 95 percent of other babies. This is because you’re a breech baby, and a special kind of breech for that matter— you’re a footling breech a rare sort that’s only about two percent of births. Meaning your head isn’t the right side down facing the birthing canal and you have your foot stuck in the passageway; and last we checked you are kneeling with your head down as if in a very solemn or desperate prayer.

I blame your Mamita Geng for this (she wants to be called Mamita and not lola). She would always play her praise songs at full blast every 5 am in the morning, and intermittently throughout the day. It could be argued that music is the most effective way to communicate with the soul, and you without your consciousness could just be a malleable soul, and your Mamita’s praise songs forced your soul to bend your body into that classic worship pose.

Because of this odd position you’ve put yourself into, you couldn’t be delivered the normal way. Some breech babies could be delivered normally through the birthing canal if it’s the second baby and the passage way is already broken in, but since you’re a first, it would be very dangerous for both you and your mom to force a normal delivery.

The alternative from coming out from a vagina is passing through a five to six inch incision on your mom’s tummy. It’s not as scary as it sounds, your mom will be fine. It’s her recovery I’m worried about, and knowing her, it’ll not be easy to take care of her. She’s a big baby as well (peace). There’s a reason why the term ‘baby mama’ is coined and it applies to your mom in many levels (peace and love)… but I guess that’s just part this parenting adventure bundle I’ve gotten myself into and all’s good. It’s normal. And normal is sometimes something you just accept.

You’ll struggle with things normal and try to deviate from it at certain points in your life, specially you that didn’t come out the normal way from the get go. But if it makes you feel any better; folklore has ascribed babies like you with special powers and good fortune. The ancients said you’d make a brilliant masseuse because your touch can cure sprains and a mere caress can easily relieve a fishbone stuck on someone’s throat. This magical skill considered, you’d at least have a means to make money just in case people are still superstitious 18 or so years from now. And besides, a career in physical therapy makes a killing in some countries. But kidding aside, I know you’ll be special… you already are.

So smile my Princess, because you’re two out of a hundred, with a magic touch and a bringer of luck, and perhaps it’s correct to say that you’re not at all normal.

There was Gago wine and so you happened…

Remember that within every situation are perspectives and interpretations. There are always many versions of every tale, and all versions should be considered (take note though, that considering something is different from actually believing it).

So here is my version (one of many) of how you came to be…

It was my birthday. Your Tito Malay cooked a scrumptious birthday dinner for the group. He cooked T-bone steaks stewed in thick gravy, a marble potato salad, tossed pasta, and there were lots and lots of red wine.

Later, the wine ran out and Malay had to pull from his hidden stash so the party could continue. He brought out a wine called GAGO, a Spanish wine and a gift given to him by your Tito Harn and Tita Pam during his birthday three months back. And that Gago wine, aptly named considering the effects, is a badass wine.

Your Tita Pam would always exclaim jokingly whenever the story of your conception comes up that Gago wine is the fertility wine. It might be. Why not? Whatever works, right?

‘Whatever works’, sounds like a statement for the clueless and desperate, which I am in different instances during that tumultuous year of 2011. And the torture of being aware of being clueless and desperate (about stuff not related to making babies) is eased (temporarily) by an overdose of wine. And at that moment, Gago wine is at hand. With it, along with glasses of of Jacob’s Creek, Stone Cellars and Frontera, a level was b/reached and I arrived at a point of no return and liked it.

Someday you’ll learn about tipping points and thresholds, and reaching this point or level could both be good and bad. That night, the threshold was passed and control was lost and you were made. I would like to believe that it was a good thing. Of course it’s a good thing. It could even be argued that it’s the best act of drunken courage I’ve ever committed in my life. And there you have it. I have you.

That’s basically the story of your conception.

Sorry if I had to share this story with emphasis to wines, but I think it’s a funny, if not inappropriate, detail of your creation story. There’s a more romantic version, I could tell that someday, but it wouldn’t have the element of the ‘wine’ in it and without it I would lose my point.

Wines, spirits, liquor, and beer play an important role in human life. They are sort of friends, acquaintances, enemies, addictions, relievers, and remedies for many things you’d learn for yourself when you’re old enough. That night though, those red bottled spirits played different roles for different people. It made others sad and in denial, it made some naughty in an awkward funny way, it made others happy enough to confront certain doubts they had within themselves. And no matter how people expressed it, it somehow revealed what people wanted.

My favorite wine quote came from the Italians: In vino, verite - in wine there is truth. Wine honestly reveals a part of yourself that you would have repressed or denied in sobriety. That time I knew what I wanted and I honestly admitted to myself that I wanted you. It was my birthday anyway and you would be my gift. And that’s what happened on my 28^th year on earth. I closed my eyes, made a wish and drank, and it happened.

Today is March 5; it’s the first Monday of the first week of summer in 2012. Three weeks from now you will be born. Three weeks from now, I’m going to pop a bottle of bubbly (Gago is just too strong, and the name is too weird) and maybe light a Cuban cigar just like in the movies. I will drink to your arrival to consciousness, puff away to your first breath, and celebrate the start of a lifetime that we’ll be sharing together.

The night when you first came into my mind

It was an unremarkable June night in 2011. I probably came from a meeting that time. I was driving alone. Traffic was moderate in Edsa. Nothing special happened, except maybe the thought of you springing up in my mind. I could still remember the exact location where I was when that happened. Who would have thought that a month later, that idea of you would become real? Someone said to me that all that which you manifest is before you; I didn’t know he was serious when he said it and that it could be true.

I was driving up the Edsa to Ortigas ramp. The radio was off and there was silence. It was one of those contemplative drives when you tune out the traffic noise and only your thoughts keep you company. During which, I started thinking about life experiences and how to make the most out of them. My thoughts seesawed from memories to possibilities. I reminisced my past and outlined a brief structure of my future. And perhaps It’s only natural during such moments for you to ask yourself as to where to go next? After all the night outs, booze, intoxication, drinking the yuppie grail, getting lost and found, being here and there, breaking and mending, becoming sane and crazy… what’s next, what now?

And then out of the left field of my subconscious, it hit me: fatherhood. That time the concept merely sounded like an adventure. Seemed like a piece that could somehow complete a human life experience of the male puzzle. I got a bit scared by my line of thinking. I froze for a bit but then said to myself: why not?

As I stepped on the accelerator while climbing the incline, I realized that I wanted to experience being a father. I wanted fatherhood and all its challenges. I wanted to feel unconditional love, and this is a surefire way. I wanted a princess, a girl I’ll love with every fiber of my being. That’s when I realized I wanted you.

One morning, six weeks later, two red lines said that my wish came true.