Is this what Milan Kundera meant by the Unbearable Lightness of Being?...
Yes. I have given birth to a beautiful baby girl.
Her name is Ironclad Promise Nazareth and that name has garnered a lot of controversy among my family and peers.
“Are we raising her to be a little wrestler?”
“Is she going to be a future martial arts expert?
A member of the Justice League?
A student of the Charles Xavier School for the Gifted?
The answer is no.
Or to be more exact, I don't know.
She could be a future Nobel Prize winner for all we know and her name might simply make people remember her for it's uniqueness or she could simply go through life in a most ordinary and unremarkable way, though, her parent's are convinced that she's one of a kind. I really don't know what she's growing up to be, or whether or not her name will have anything to do with the person she's destined to become.
After all, a rose by any other name... :)
I just know I love her. I just know she's worth everything I've been through before I had her.
And so is her daddy.
No Promises.
Just this one.
The only one that matters to me.
Anyway, back to the story. It was two o'clock and Promise was still awake. She didn't cry. I just woke up to check on her and saw that her eyes were wide open. She seemed to have a perpetual question mark above her head as though something beyond her control was inevitably happening and she didn't know what to do about it. She gave her dad the same look earlier in the day when she has just unloaded on her diapers. He calls it "Daddy Time" when I'm done feeding her and he takes his turn with the burping (we call it “The Big Bigay"... bigay uya and all, hehehe!) and it took him about ten to fifteen minutes and some active olfactory intervention to figure out why she was wearing that expression at all: an expression her father later mimicked when he finally figured it out. (Haha!)
“Parang may malaking kasalanan ako sa kanya na hindi ko malaman kung ano...”
I love Daddy Time.
I get to watch the two people I love the most getting glued together by a most unbreakable bond. I even get jealous sometimes. Every time she smiles in his arms, or every time he gives her the Grizzly Bear Kiss, I tell myself: "I wan't that..." and I fall in love with the both of them all over again.
Anyway, she didn't cry then either. She just gave him that “Do Something About The Situation NOW Look”. So on intuition, I took a peek into her nether lands and sure enough, a yellow bomb has exploded on her little tush. So a diaper change was in order. But despite the works: fresh diapers, attach to boobies, lullabies, slow dancing, a very efficient burp surprisingly loud for someone so tiny, and a whole play list of mom's brain-enhancing classical music and she was as alive and kickin' as a sunflower on a midsummer's day.
I, on the other hand ,felt like wilting.
There was a time, after 10 random songs off the top of my head (some with invented lyrics because I just can't remember them all...) when she was about to doze off. Her eyes were fluttering, almost closing. Her little mouth licking the last remnants of her milk, and I, bending down to lay her little head on her little bed, finally let out that long overdue sigh of exhaustion....
And then she had the hiccups.
Hick!
And her eyes snapped open again.
Hick!
And she started to squirm in my arms, stretching herself to freedom as though she's just awoken from a long, long, long slumber.
Hick!
Hick!
I guess I sighed too soon.
It was back to square one.
Lullabies...
Attach to boobies...
Slow dancing...
A very efficient burp surprisingly loud for someone so tiny...
A whole play list of mom's brain-enhancing classical music...
But the hiccups just kept coming.
It was about another 45 minutes of trying to decipher what she wanted and what to do. Geez! I was so tired, I even agreed to Manang Bebang's remedy for the hiccups: a strip of tissue paper on the forehead...”because that's just how we do it in the province, so don't argue”... ANYTHING! Just make my baby happy please.
They warned me about this moment.
I didn't believe it then, but they're all looking at me like I had a scarlet letter over my forehead and they're all saying, “I told you so..”
There will come a time when no matter how adorable your infant is, she will bring the dragon out of you. You will get so tired, you'll be left with nothing but to cry yourself to exhaustion.
And cry ourselves to exhaustion is what we truly did, Promise and I.
It was funny, actually, now that I look back. She was screaming. She was turning from my milk. Her whole face was red. Nanay Ring and Manang Bebang have both been startled awake by her incessant crying, interrupted only by the equally incessant hiccuping. I was about to give up. Then just as she was taking in a mouthful of breath, preparatory to another heartbreaking squeal:
BROOOOOOOOT!
Then there was silence as her eyes flashed open and she stared at me unblinkingly.
No more hiccups.
No more squirming.
No more squeals.
She blinked twice as if to say: “There. Problem solved.”
Then she settled into my arms, closed her eyes again and fell instantly to sleep.
Leche con yielo talaga! Ansarap ng buhay baby!
I looked at the clock and it was half past 5.
Manang Bebang went and dragged her bed to block the door and slept there (to block the evil spirits from entering our home and causing another discomfort for our baby, she said). She and Nanay Ring were both looking at me as though it were all my fault. But I was too tired to care, so kebs.
This is what you get for hiring a semi-manghihilot for a house keeper. :) But they're amazing together, Nanay Ring ang Manang Bebang. I suppose they balance each other out. Fast becoming BFFS. Promise is one well-loved little child.
Thirty minutes later, the sun was shining, and I woke up to the sound of Tope's voice. He was getting ready for work. It was OR Day at the Orthopedic Center so he was in his clean scrubs, and he just had himself a clean shave (God bless the inventor of aftershave!).
He was giving Promise the Grizzly Bear Kiss.
And I told myself, “I want that...”
And he actually bent down and gave me one. :)
God Bless the inventor of aftershave indeed!
And I got to watch the two people I love the most, getting glued together by something I could completely understand but could not quite describe...
And I knew I was falling in love with the both of them all over again. :)
Wala lang, sharing.... :0P
No comments:
Post a Comment